


zenith

by Fox_In_A_Box, Polly_Summerisle



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Aphrodisiacs, Armitage Hux Has Issues, Blow Jobs, Drinking, Force Choking (Star Wars), Groundhog Day, Happy Ending, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Panic Attacks, Poisoning, Slow Burn, Suicide to reset the clock, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, Time Travel Fix-It, enemies to reluctant allies to lovers, suicide ideation, they repeatedly try to murder each other for the greater good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:07:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28750428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_In_A_Box/pseuds/Fox_In_A_Box, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Summerisle/pseuds/Polly_Summerisle
Summary: The darkness that enveloped Armitage Hux's dying conscience did not last long. Its place was quickly taken by the incessant succession of messages on the screen of a datapad.Meanwhile, the person who once called himself Kylo Ren had died believing he had finally paid his debt to the Galaxy.Six years before Exegol, two men were about to meet for the first time. Or maybe not.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 56
Kudos: 114
Collections: Kylux Marmot Fest





	1. Introduction.

**Author's Note:**

> This story began to take shape about a year ago. We honestly never thought it would leave our shared folder on Drive, or that it would ever become so important to us.
> 
> We have the Kylux Marmot Fest to thank if we finally found the courage to share this madness with the rest of the fandom.
> 
> Before we start, a few warnings: at the beginning of this story Kylo and Hux are not...particularly kind to each other. We know this is basically the essence of Kylux, and that's why we all love them so much. However, we ask you to read the warnings carefully: the respective attempts on each other's lives are real and often successful - or, at least, as successful as one might expect from a time loop. 
> 
> Additional notes and warnings will be, from this moment on, at the end of each chapter.

  
The first thing Armitage Hux saw when he opened his eyes was the alarm display flashing furiously, signaling that two hours had passed since the start of the _Alpha_ shift. 

The second thing he saw was his datapad, placed neatly on the bedside table in front of the alarm clock, the screen illuminated by a rapid succession of messages. 

Hux blinked, his heavy eyelids trembling imperceptibly, finding that opening his eyes was almost painful. 

_I need to cut with the stimulants_ , he thought absently. Another couple of months like that, and he wouldn't have been surprised if he ended up on medical leave due to heart failure. With any luck, that ridiculous and miserable story would most likely be over in two months. It would have been really surprising if Ren or even Pryde didn't already have...

_Hold on._

Hux sat up suddenly, now fully awake, hastily putting a hand to his ribcage. His heartbeat, steady but fast, seemed almost out of place in his aching chest.

_Pryde._

He quickly got rid of the sheets - absentmindedly registering their softness, almost as if he was no longer used to it - and stumbled towards the refresher. Which was not where it should have been.

Hux instinctively drew back towards the nearest wall, carefully resting his shoulders against the surface. His eyes automatically searched the room that surrounded him, mechanically recording what they were seeing but refusing to make any sense of it. A double bed, two wardrobes with clean and functional lines, a full-length mirror, an armchair with leather armrests. To the right of the bed, a door that led to what appeared to be a smaller room. To the left, a sliding wall, beyond which the General could glimpse, through a crack left ajar, the unmistakable shape of an ice-blue couch.

It was, without any chance of Hux being mistaken, the room he owned aboard the Finalizer.

The datapad screen lit up again. Hux grabbed it with hands that seemed to have lost all sensitivity, feeling like a droid - as if his actions did not belong to him, and he was merely observing a surreal scene from an external point of view. The series of messages he read on the device's screen only made him even more confident that he was hallucinating.

Phasma (6.32): I only wanted to remind you that Snoke's apprentice is arriving today

Phasma (6.46): will you be there for the briefing?

Phasma (6.54): typical, I bet you already are in the hangar doing the honors

Phasma (6.55): I'm sure everything is in order. I saw how you yelled at Corporal Tano last night

Phasma (7.10): Colonel?

Phasma (7.22): You are not on the bridge

Phasma (7.30): you will not think of leaving this task to me

Phasma (7.30): don't even think about it

Phasma (7.54): Armitage ??????????

Phasma (8.04): I am taking my men to the hangar to welcome the Supreme Leader's apprentice i am for the last time asking you to graciously ANSWER ME 

Phasma (8.06): so it seems you are not in the medbay

Phasma (8.06): if you have accidentally died and no one has noticed it yet i swear will laugh so SO MUCH

He had just finished reading the last message when a trembling knock on the door startled him.

"Who is it?", he barked.

"Corporal Mitaka!" Replied a cheerful and familiar voice on the other side of the door. "Lieutenant Phasma sent me to check that everything is in order and to remind you that the Supreme Leader's apprentice will be here shortly, Colonel!"

Hux hurriedly opened the top drawer of the bedside table and grabbed the blaster, which, he knew, he would find inside. He threw a distressed look at the weapon - _that model was at least six years old_ \- before throwing it on the bed and rushing to open the door.

In front of him was Dopheld Mitaka - not the Mitaka he remembered and with whom he had exchanged a couple of words just the day before, but a younger version of him. The round face was almost childish, devoid of the regulation shave signs that usually appeared on the officer's sensitive skin. Hux quickly peered at the insignia pinned to the uniform sleeve of the man in front of him, which confirmed his worst suspicions - _Corporal_.

Mitaka, in the meantime, was watching him with wide eyes. The blush that had rapidly begun to color his cheeks made Hux realize he hadn't even put on a robe before rushing to the door. 

"Is everything alright, sir?", asked the boy, unable to look away.

Now, Hux had two options in front of himself: look Mitaka straight in the eye and ask him " _do you think I look like a person who is feeling alright?_ ", ask him if he didn't find it a bit strange that the consequences of having received a blaster shot in the chest from that son of a bitch Pryde were a series of absurd and nonsensical things, like for instance finding a series of petulant messages from the late Captain Phasma - not to mention that the Finalizer appeared to be operational again, or even the fact that he had apparently been demoted to the rank of Colonel, Mitaka had regressed to the post-adolescent phase and, wonder of wonders, the entire crew was preparing to welcome none other than _Kylo fucking Ren_ himself, also demoted to the role of apprentice of a man who, if Hux's memory wasn't failing him, had been dead for at least a whole year.

Or he could scold Mitaka for the inappropriateness of the way he was staring at him, come up with a plausible excuse, make himself presentable, and head to the hangar to figure out what the hell was going on - and hopefully, in the meantime, wake up from what looked like to be the worst nightmare he ever had.

\-- 

Kylo Ren woke with a start, his forehead covered with sweat and his heart pounding.

Since childhood he had been used to hearing the stories of ancient Jedi heroes. He had grown up dreaming of their exploits and imagining for himself an equally exciting future. First, his mother and then his uncle did their best to instill in his heart the values of courage, compassion, and self-sacrifice in the name of the greater good, with the promise of an eternity spent in harmony with the Force and with the spirits of all the great warriors who came before him.  
Though he ended up disavowing those same ideals the very moment he eliminated his naive training mates, threw Skywalker's school into chaos, and agreed to join Snoke as an apprentice, a tiny, tiny part of him continued to believe in the perhaps all too romantic idea of an afterlife made of honor and glory. A place that he would only be able to earn by leaving an indelible mark on the history of the Galaxy.

What he was experiencing now was as far as possible from the image he had built in his mind. There was darkness everywhere he turned, cold shivers ran through his body, and an oppressive weight was crushing his chest, making it difficult even to breathe. Was this the punishment Fate had reserved him for all the injustices he committed in the course of his life? Had his decision to embrace the Light Side come too late? Was he still condemned to an eternity of suffering? Could that be that everything he had fought for - the battles he had participated in, the lives he had destroyed, the planets he had conquered - had been in vain? The very thought was unbearable.

In the grip of a fury as blind as his eyes were, suffocating as he was in the complete darkness that surrounded him, he groped aimlessly until his right hand met something. That something turned out to be a kind of switch that, when pressed, flooded the surrounding space with artificial light, forcing him to squint.  
When his sight gradually began to get used to the brightness, he realized that he was lying on a rather uncomfortable cot, and the weight he felt at the height of his stomach was nothing more than a large and heavy pillow.  
All around him there was a sort of small cabin, one of those often found in ships used for short trips through hyperspace. He threw himself out of bed, almost falling flat on the floor when the sheets twisted around his legs. Which did not stop him from continuing to stomp undaunted to the opposite side of the room. In a brief flash of clarity, he tried to convince himself that if he could sprinkle some water on his face and maybe see his reflection in the mirror, he would also make sense of what was happening to him.

Kylo looked around, noting that there were two other closed doors in addition to the entrance that presumably overlooked the outside of the cabin. He chose one of them without really thinking about what he was doing. By mistake - or perhaps a curious twist of Fate - instead of entering the refresher, he ended up staggering into the wardrobe, finding himself face to face with his old helmet, hanging on a hook along with his cloak.  
It was intact, with no trace of the blood-red cracks left by his attempt to put the pieces back together. Intact as it hasn't been for… for so long. Before the Emperor's return, before Snoke's assassination, before doubt began to tear him apart. Kylo was suddenly assailed by a strange sense of nostalgia. He reached out, touching the metal with his knuckles with unusual delicacy. The helmet stood there, staring back at him like an old friend. It was at that moment that he heard someone knocking insistently on the door.

"What..?" He growled, whirling towards the closed door.

With the door still separating them, Kylo could see not the face nor the expression of his interlocutor, so he could not know for sure, but a certain nervousness seemed to hover in the air. The unlucky man's trembling voice did nothing but confirm his assumptions.  
  
"We are going to reach the Finalizer's hangar in a few minutes, sir. I was asked to instruct you in advance so that you could prepare for your meeting with Colonel Hux."

There was something horribly wrong with that last sentence. It took Kylo a moment to realize that what disturbed him was the word _Colonel_ pronounced so close to the name of that arrogant bastard Hux. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember the last time someone had referred to the man with anything other than the title of General. It had been… well, years. Six years, if his memory wasn't failing him. At that very moment, Kylo knew where he was.

"No," he whispered to himself, too crushed by the gravity of his understanding to realize he was talking out loud. "No, that's impossible."


	2. Chapter 2

Having resumed a semblance of dignity, his hair (shorter and thicker than he remembered) firmly combed back, and wearing a uniform on which only a thin red stripe stood out to represent his rank, Hux strutted in the direction of the hangar.

Although he had dreamed for months of being able to return aboard an operational and functioning Finalizer, the persistent impression of being sunk into a feverish delirium prevented Hux from paying the slightest attention to the sublime war machine that surrounded him.

Of one thing he was, however, certain: whatever had happened, there was no doubt it was all Kylo Ren's fault.

The idea of actually having gone back in time was, for the former General, simply unacceptable. He was aware of individuals and populations who, in every age, had from time to time claimed to have the ability to travel back and forth into the past. He had always dismissed their testimonies as ravings, and relegated them to that tidy shelf within his mind database into which he had also thrown all the mystical nonsense Ren was so fond of.  
Take, for instance, the Force.  
After spending years in the company of an emotionally unstable warlock, Hux could pretty confidently declare that the Force was nothing more than an unreliable physical law that operated according to random criteria. There was no other way to explain why the mysterious energy had voluntarily chosen to be wielded by an unreasonable beast like Kylo Ren, of all beings. The fact that it existed and that it could be manipulated by a brainless animal did not justify any of the mystical nonsense that Hux had had to listen to too many times over the past few years.

There was no reason why he was supposed to assume that anything had _actually_ happened. Was he really expected to believe...what, exactly? That he had died by the hand of Pryde only to awake in a younger body, on a Finalizer which was up and running, with an alive Phasma - _oh, that was cruel, that was so cruel_ \- and a crew eagerly awaiting for the arrival of no less than Kylo Ren?

Hux scoffed, accidentally alarming a couple of Stormtroopers that were just turning the corner. 

He had seen enough of Ren's deplorable magic tricks not to recognize that hallucination for what it was. 

He tried to ignore an intrusive thought, whose malevolent voice reminded him of Enric Pryde's

_What if it wasn't Ren's trick? What if you have been mistaken and it’s not his fault this time?_

and set about covering the short distance that separated him from the meeting place.

The hangar was packed, exactly as he remembered it. Although six years had passed, the memory of that day was vividly etched in his mind. Not for the unpleasantness of the day itself, but for it being the prelude to six years during that saw Hux’s military career reaching its highest peaks and its deepest abysses.

He headed for his own troops, already lined up at attention. Phasma slowly turned her helmet in his direction, making Hux wonder at the way she was able to be inquisitive even when she was not showing her face. He suddenly felt his stomach clenching. He had missed her more than it was easy for him to admit. He found himself wondering, for a moment, if there was any chance he was not being tricked, if he somehow managed to go back to a younger and less broken version of himself. A traitor thought that had the bitter taste of hope, and that Hux suppressed immediately. 

He had arrived just in time. The hangar roof was opening, revealing a small aircraft intent on completing the final landing maneuvers.

Hux crossed his arms behind his back, and took a deep breath.

\--

Since not even the sensation of the freezing water on his skin had been able to help him clear up the absurd situation, Kylo had no choice but to play along, put on the old clothes he had found in the wardrobe, put on the helmet on his face and play his part. And so he did. He dressed with a series of automatic movements, leaving his mind free to wander through all possible scenarios, wondering what the Force and its hidden mechanisms expected from him and still failing to give himself an answer. He finished lacing his boots just in time to hear the ship land with a series of slight jolts.

At the exact moment when the hatch began to lower, letting him glimpse the ranks of soldiers who rushed into the hangar to welcome him, his gaze immediately ran to the only familiar figure in a sea of immaculate armors. There it was Armitage Hux himself, the true portrait of pride and military composure. If in his heart Kylo had continued to hope that the officer who had been assigned the unfortunate task of going to wake him had made a simple mistake in appointing Hux as a Colonel, the grades imprinted on his uniform left no room for further doubts.

As he descended the ramp, Kylo was tempted to creep into his mind, just as he had done that same day many years before - at the time finding hatred, disdain, and distrust, all covered by a subtle current of anxiety and unrest - but he stopped himself. What made him think he would read something different in it this time? If indeed this was the way the Force had chosen to teach him a lesson, Hux had no role other than that being an unbearable pawn placed on the board with the sole purpose of making his life miserable. What other role could that petty, disloyal, careerist soldier ever play?

So he continued on his way, under the watchful and reasonably frightened gaze of dozens and dozens of stormtroopers, lined up in compound rows to his left and right. The General - or rather, _the Colonel_ \- was waiting for him at the end of that human corridor, with an indecipherable expression painted on his face and his arms crossed behind his back. Kylo stopped a few steps away from him, raising a hand for his escorts to do the same.

"Colonel," he said, acknowledging Hux with a small nod. "Supreme Leader Snoke has told me a lot about you. It is a pleasure to finally meet you. "

For the first time in ages, Kylo was infinitely grateful for the helmet's built-in voice modulator. He was not at all sure that he would be able to hide the irritation in his own voice without some kind of outside help.

"I welcome you aboard the Finalizer, Lord Ren", he heard Hux answering, clipped, barely managing to mask his annoyance. _How certain things never change._ "Supreme Leader Snoke has personally instructed me to welcome you and escort you to the audience hall."

Hux nodded in the direction of an officer whose name Kylo wasn’t, for the life of himself, absolutely able to remember. "My men will take care of your escort. We have prepared a temporary accommodation, which will be available to your companions for as long as they will deem it necessary." He nodded again to the troops behind him, silently ordering them to make room for their new guest to pass. "Please follow me."

Kylo let his small escort be taken over by Hux's officers before joining him and letting himself be guided in the direction of Snoke’s audience chamber. The interiors of the Star Destroyer were exactly as he remembered them. Although several years had now passed since he had set foot on the Finalizer for the first time, the large control rooms and the long polished corridors had been an integral part of his days for so long that he could hardly forget their exact layout. Which, if nothing, was comforting. It meant that, as soon as he would have been able to clear his mind about the purpose of his mission, he could move freely inside the ship, knowing exactly where to go and what to look for without raising too many suspicions.

The only obstacle was represented by the man who, at that moment, was walking beside him. If his memory of the Finalizer coincided perfectly with what he was seeing, the same could not be said of Hux. Sure, the snobbish attitude and the resolute strut were the same that the ex-General had shown until a few days before the summary execution at the hands of Pryde. Still, on closer observation it was easy to notice some out of place details - starting from his haircut, up to the complete absence of the black circles under the eyes that had become an integral part of his complexion since Starkiller Base’s sensational fiasco (no doubt the result of sleepless nights spent obsessively wondering how to make amends for the mistakes he made in the eyes of the Supreme Leader). _Truly pathetic._

Kylo had to hold back an exasperated sigh as he realized that, whether he liked it or not, Hux was the only foothold he could use to begin to orient himself in that incomprehensible nightmare that so much resembled his previous life. As much as he didn't like admitting it, even to himself, he had never been a good liar. He solved all his problems with direct confrontation and a not inconsiderable dose of brute force. Lies and subterfuges were the weapons of cowards - the weapons of people like _Hux_. And now finding something to say that would allow him to frame the situation, but which at the same time did not sound strange, or even suspicious on his part, proved to be a more difficult task than he had imagined.

"You seem very proud of your ship, Colonel," he finally managed to mutter. "How long have you served the First Order?"

"Acute observation, Lord Ren," Hux answered, unable as usual to do something such as breathing without being sarcastic. "I have served the First Order since its foundation." He paused, just the time to cast Kylo a quick glance that didn’t go as unnoticed as he clearly hoped, and continued. "And what about you? How long have you been in the service of Supreme Leader Snoke?"

Needless to say, Kylo wasn’t paying much attention to Hux’s words. He already knew the answer, just as he knew that, if given the chance, Hux would take the opportunity to boast of his long history within the First Order ranks. And if he certainly couldn't say he missed the man, what he missed even less was his sarcasm as sharp as a knife blade. It made him want to unleash all the power of the Force against him, just for the sake of hearing him gasp and pleading in that pitiful strangled voice to let him go. He was so busy fighting the temptation to get rid of him on the spot, thus ruining any chance he had of acting undisturbed, that it took him a few seconds too long to realize that Hux had just asked him a question in his turn. Not particularly clever on his side, since now Hux was looking at him with the expression of someone who had just bitten on an extraordinarily sour lemon.

"It's been several years now," he answered quickly. It had been only a few minutes, but being forced to carry on the conversation in that fake polite tone - with _Hux_ , of all people! - was already becoming unbearable. He wondered if Hux didn't think the same way. He probably did. He probably was already thinking him an idiot. Not that it was anything new, but it was still unnerving.

  
He rushed for something else to say. "Supreme Leader Snoke is a good teacher, I owe everything I have become to him. Although sometimes I wonder how your military organization will fit into his vision.”  
  


It clearly was the wrong thing to say. Kylo breathed in deeply, trying to clear his mind despite Hux’s presence beside him. He could already feel the other man tensing, his pride undoubtedly wounded by his words. How Ironic how such a broad-minded individual was so skeptical of anything he couldn't touch.

"I guess you have your motivations," he heard Hux replying slowly, clearly pondering his words. "I do not know the nature of your affiliation, nor what kind of relationship binds you to our Supreme Leader, but since you are not part of the military corps, I invite you to feel free to always express your opinion in my presence." The Colonel straightened his shoulders, and Kylo knew he was preparing to deliver a blow. He raised his eyes to the corridor’s ceiling in a silent plea, infinitely grateful for the mask that was covering his face  
  
"Supreme Leader Snoke represents the quintessence of the values of the First Order”, Hux continued. “I confess that I am not always fully able to grasp his _vision,_ as you called it - my limitation, no doubt - but I have complete faith in his experience and in his leadership role." He gave Kylo a courtesy smile which was actually colder than ice. "However, you certainly know him better than I do. And I am sure that having a personal relationship with such a powerful man is not easy. "

 _No real blow_ , thought Kylo. _How weird._  
"It isn't, in fact," he replied, forcing himself to carefully weigh every word. "I share your difficulty in understanding some of his projects, that's what I meant. But regardless of the doubts you and I may have about it, I am sure that the Supreme Leader is always acting for the good of the Order and the rest of the Galaxy. Don't you think so, Colonel? "

Once again, the question was just a pretext to buy some time, let Hux talk to the wind while he prepared, physically and psychologically, for the meeting with the Supreme Leader. He would have to put all his energy to shield his thoughts as much as possible, to resist any attempt by Snoke - or, well, Palpatine - to reduce him again to little more than a tool to achieve his nefarious ends. But if he played his cards right, then maybe he would finally find some answers.

"Oh, you can be sure of that," Hux replied, almost absently.  
They had finally reached the end of the long corridor which, from the third level of the Finalizer, had led them to the ship’s northern elevators.

The red light coming from the control panel flashed ominously, reflecting on the shiny surface of the elevator’s door.

Hux pressed the call button.

"I guess the Supreme Leader will desire to confer with you privately," he said, turning towards Kylo and crossing his hands behind his back. 

"I suppose so. In any case, I guess the Supreme Leader himself will let you know ", Kylo added, with a hint of maliciousness. He knew how those meetings made Hux uncomfortable, and he hoped that Snoke would find a pretext to hold Hux back. The Colonel’s presence, however irritating, could have proved a valuable source of distraction. He was incapable to forget how the Supreme Leader had always been far too glad to put them one against the other as if he wanted to see one of them prevail and destroy the other one.  
He didn't have much height left to hold on to, besides the possibility that Snoke was too busy putting discord between his two most promising commanders to worry about the chaos that reigned in his thoughts. That, and the hope of being able to play the part convincingly enough.

With both him and Hux immersed in their own thoughts, the awkward silence that had meanwhile descended on them lasted for the whole duration of the short ride in the elevator. When Kylo finally heard the doors opening, it was almost with a feeling of relief.  
  
"After you, Colonel."

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No particular warnings in this one, apart from Kylo and Hux being terrible individuals.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check the end of the chapter for a list of potentially triggering contents.

They spent the brief journey in the elevator in complete silence, interrupted only by the dreadful noise coming from Ren's mask, distorting his breath into a raucous gasp.

The doors opened with a loud _ding!_ , making the audience hall's sober entrance appear before Hux and his unwelcome companion.

He preceded Ren down the dimly lit corridor. He could already see the outline of the high staircase heading to the podium on which Snoke's throne appeared, looming in the dim light. In the deadly silence that enveloped the hall, Hux could hear the beating of his own traitor heart echoing in his ears with the same intensity of an explosion.

He would not give in to fear. With any luck, Palpatine would have been as oblivious as Ren. And if it had not been so, there was still the possibility that what his eyes were showing him was nothing more than a delusional dream, a hallucination caused by the shock of having received a blaster shot in the chest. In a few moments, he would hopefully wake up in the infirmary, perhaps inside a bacta tank or even in his own bed, wearing off the aftermath of a massive dose of sleeping pills. One way or another, he would have walked away. 

Snoke's hologram appeared in front of them with a static noise, similar to an interference.

"Colonel Hux," he said. "Thank you for taking charge of my apprentice. You are dismissed. "

Hux could hardly believe his luck. He miraculously managed to contain the relief that he felt building in his chest, masking it, as he had learned to do over the years, with other feelings - mistrust, disappointment at being used as a mere attendant, envy.

He bowed with reverence and quickly headed to the exit, leaving the room without giving Ren a second glance.

Back in his quarters and double-locked the door behind him, Hux began to reflect on what to do next. He hardly believed the clamorous luck he'd had in slipping out of Palpatine's grasp with so much ease. He only hoped that the rotting carcass wouldn't summon him for some time, or at least until Hux had elaborated a more accurate picture of what the actual fuck was happening and, consequently, had decided how to behave in public.

He picked up his Datapad, quickly remembering the access codes, and took a look at his schedule. He had never been so grateful for his habit of meticulously recording every appointment and task assigned to him, no matter how repetitive or dull they were. Providentially, the rest of his morning was free, as it was the early afternoon - probably his past self had thought it appropriate to carve out ample space to welcome Ren and introduce him to Snoke. The rest of the _Beta_ shift involved routine inspections and bureaucracy until dinner time. After that, he would have had the _Gamma_ shift entirely to himself.

The way he had organized the day would have allowed him to retrieve - without too much frustration, if the stars had been on his side - the information necessary to review the projects he was supposed to work on. It would have been opportune to review his officers and their respective roles, just in case his memory decided to play tricks on him. It would have been foolishly naive of him to mess up his cover just because, out of laziness or boredom, he hadn't bothered to memorize his crew's current configuration.

As for his superiors, there was little to review. He knew their names and faces all too well. The idea of meeting one of them again, in particular, was making his hands tremble with rage.

But he didn't have time to think about Brendol Hux. He had enough things to do to keep himself busy for the first two shifts. And as for the _Gamma_ shift...well, there was nothing suspicious in trying to be a good host and inviting his new, eminent crew member to have a drink with him after dinner. After all, a friendly, informative chat was what one would expect from any good colleague.  
  
A message from Mitaka informed Hux that Ren had been accompanied to his rooms. He deduced that the meeting with Snoke had therefore taken place without particular incidents. He could not help but wonder, with a feeling that it would not have been right to call apprehension but which was positively not calm, what the two Force-users had said to each other. Were they aware of what was happening?

Hux hated the idea of having to wait until the end of the _Beta_ shift before trying to corner Ren and shine a light on the day's events, but he had no other choice.

He quickly fixed his hair - the version of himself that appeared in the mirror looked ten years younger, free of the dark circles under his eyes that he had for months unsuccessfully tried to eliminate with expensive cosmetic products - and headed for the bridge. Apparently, given his father's momentary absence from the Finalizer, he was currently the officer with the highest military rank on board - except for Datoo, who had, however, the same position.

During the short journey that separated him from the place where he was expected to meet his subordinates to receive a report, he found the time to scribble a quick message on his Datapad.

**Col. Hux (12.09)** : I was informed that Corporal Mitaka escorted you to your rooms no more than half an hour ago. I hope you have found them to your liking and you have been provided with everything you needed. Do not hesitate to forward your eventual inquiries to our service droids.

I also hope that the conversation with the Supreme Leader has been productive. I would like to invite you to an informal meeting in my private office at the beginning of this _Gamma_ shift, to discuss a joined line of action to be taken over the next few weeks. Kind regards, Col. A. Hux.

\--

Once again, Kylo silently thanked his younger self for deciding to hide his face behind a mask, which in that precise moment allowed him to hide his disappointment when Hux was immediately dismissed by Snoke. To add insult to injury, he had to endure the Colonel's evident contempt without being able to say or do anything before Hux slipped away with a final nod in the direction of the artificial image of the Supreme Lader, leaving him alone in front of the gigantic hologram.

"Something troubles you, my apprentice," Snoke began, without any preamble, as soon as Hux was out of earshot.

It wasn't a question, yet Kylo knew that if he didn't offer him a prompt, quick, but most importantly plausible answer, Palpatine wouldn't hesitate to try to break through the mental barrier he'd placed to protect his thoughts. He tried to focus on something easy to simulate - the disdain he felt for the man who had just left the room.

"You know that I have the utmost confidence in every choice you make, Supreme Leader, but I couldn't help but notice that the Colonel exhibits a certain wariness towards me. I suspect he doesn't trust me or your decision to send me here."

For a brief moment, Kylo felt a familiar pressure build up around him, an unmistakable sign that Palpatine was bending the Force to his will. He held his breath.

"Hux is a rabid dog to be kept on a short leash, that is true, Kylo. But he is also ambitious, and so far, he has shown himself more than capable of leading our troops to victory. I have a feeling he will prove himself to be a valuable tool for our cause. Essential, I dare say."

Oh, Kylo would never have had the recklessness to admit it in front of Snoke, but in a future he knew all too well, the Supreme Leader's assumptions had turned out to be correct. Without the Colonel's - soon to be General - help, the First Order would have fallen apart even before Starkiller Base's construction.  
  
It was at that moment that a sudden thought struck him like a bolt from the blue. Was it possible that he had been wrong? What if Hux were not just a silly pawn in the game of Fate but rather the reason why the Force had decided to take him back in time?

_Stop Hux before he becomes too powerful, and the First Order will crumble. The Galaxy will never be at war, and you will finally pay your debt._

Was this, then, the mission assigned to him by the Force? Could that really be this simple?

Kylo barely registered the following words that Snoke addressed to him.

"And if I will ever judge that the risks of his presence outweigh the benefits, I guess you will have no trouble dealing with him. Am I wrong?"

The pressure around his throat eased until Kylo found himself breathing again. 

"As you wish, Supreme Leader."

Without even a word of farewell, Snoke's hologram was switched off.

Kylo was relieved to find that Hux had arranged for one of his officers to wait for him in front of the elevator's sliding doors - a familiar face, to which Kylo couldn't, of course, associate a name, instructed to show him around. He followed the young man without saying a word, letting the poor fellow drown in his nervousness, so evident as to be tangible in the air that surrounded him.

"The code is zero-five-seven-one-zero," the officer told Kylo as they reached the door that led to his rooms. "Once you are settled in, you can change the code with the Datapad that you will find on the wall to your immediate right."

"Thank you, Corporal..."

"Mitaka, sir," the officer jumped to specificate.

"You're now free to go."

Corporal Mitaka snapped to attention before disappearing down the hall.

Having entered the room and changed the code as suggested, Kylo decided that he would not waste time exploring an accommodation that, for better or for worse, he knew better than the back of his hand. First, he took off his helmet, placing it without too much care on the first flat surface available - a kind of low table that he did not remember having ever used. He freed himself from his heavy cloak, and he sank onto the sofa, which was unmistakably more uncomfortable than he remembered. He closed his eyes, trying to make at least a first attempt to rearrange his ideas. He soon found himself pacing back and forth around the perimeter of the room without even noticing.

The elements in favor of his theory were too numerous and too evident to be overlooked. The fact that the day of his first meeting with Hux had been chosen among all the salient moments of his life certainly had to mean something. The Force could have decided to bring him back to before he became Snoke's apprentice, to give him the possibility to choose a different path - to choose Light instead of Darkness, to choose Ben Solo over Kylo Ren. Instead, it had led him to that exact moment in time where it would have been easy for him to interfere with the not-yet General's plans and make sure that the Order collapsed with him. Without his army, Palpatine would have found himself short of valuable resources, which would undoubtedly have allowed the Resistance to end the conflict as soon as possible and without significant casualties.

_There's no harm in trying._

Now that his decision had been made, all that remained to do was outline an action plan.

A sudden sound interrupted his thread of thoughts, a sound that Kylo soon identified as the trill of the datapad announcing the arrival of a new message. Frowning, he retrieved the device. It seemed that fate had just offered him an unexpected opportunity. 

Said opportunity had appeared much earlier than he'd anticipated, forcing Kylo to take action before coming up with a concrete plan. Still, he would have been a fool to let such a chance slip - not to mention that he knew how Hux thought. He would have taken his refusal as an act of defiance, and Kylo wasn't precisely in the position to deal with a suspicious Hux. 

Better play nice, at least for the time being. 

**Lord Ren (12.27):** The room responds more than adequately to my needs. Thank you for your invitation. I agree that it is essential that we elaborate a common strategy to ensure harmony and mutual understanding in the First Order chain of command. I will be at your quarters at the start of the Gamma shift. In the meantime, I wish you a good day.

The rest of the day passed rather monotonously. A service droid appeared in the doorway just before the start of the Gamma shift to deliver him dinner - no doubt more substantial than what they served in the communal canteen frequented by the crew. 

Kylo gulped his meal, put the helmet on again, and left the room. Only when he was halfway to Hux's quarters did he think that perhaps he should have summoned an officer to be escorted through the halls of a ship which, theoretically, he had no way of knowing with such accuracy.

 _So much for keeping up appearances._

Well, it was too late anyway. He turned to the left, then to the right, and walked down the corridor where the senior officers were lodged, ultimately finding himself in front of the Colonel's quarters. He pressed the button next to the door to announce his presence and waited.

\--

Hux was sitting at his desk, waiting for Ren's arrival. He couldn't deny that the upcoming meeting made him feel nervous - having Ren in his personal space was a dreadful concept, and although he doubted that the unwelcome guest would reveal his cards (if he had any!) so early, the memory of the months he had been forced to spend in his service aboard the Steadfast was still too vivid for Hux to feel well-disposed.

Indeed, Ren was apparently committed to behaving like a decent human being - proof of this was his courteous reply message, the composition of which (Hux had few doubts about it) had certainly kept him busy for a good half an hour. At least he finally got the confirmation that, with a little dedication, Ren was able to respect the basic rules of punctuation, and that he was simply too lazy to commit to doing things correctly while being perfectly capable.

 _A summary of his squalid existence_ , thought Hux to himself, glancing at the bottle of _Starfire' skee_ placed on the sober bookcase that occupied almost the entirety of the wall behind his desk. He had to appeal to his self-control not to start drinking before the arrival of his guest - further and unequivocal sign of how much his stay on the Steadfast under Ren and Pryde had proved his nerves. He called an auxiliary droid to take away the third cup of tea of the evening, and he braced himself for Ren's appearance.

He did not have to wait long for the sound of the intercom to announce the arrival of his guest.

He calmly walked to the entrance, forbidding himself to appear anxious or overly troubled.

In the middle of the corridor, Kylo Ren, ridiculous mask firmly lowered on his face and even more ridiculous cloak draped around his shoulders, was waiting. He was completely alone.

"Lord Ren!" Hux exclaimed, moving aside to let him in. "Did you come here on your own? Did nobody took the trouble to escort you?"

He cast a quick glance in the direction of the corridor, finding it deserted. Either Ren had been accompanied by the fastest soldier in the Galaxy, or he had come alone. Somehow, Hux knew which of the two options was more likely. He would clearly have done better to keep his eyes open.

"There was no need," Kylo answered him. "Your officer showed me the layout of the cabins before taking me back to my rooms. I have a good memory. And, in any case, I'm sure your underlings have better things to do than escort me around the ship. I would not dare to tear them away from their duties for something so insignificant."

Not believing a single word, Hux motioned for Ren to make himself comfortable, which the latter did without being asked twice.

He even - to Hux's dismay - removed both helmet and cloak, placing them carefully on Hux's couch. Hux let him take a look around, taking his time to observe how Ren's gaze wandered from the books meticulously lined up on the shelves, to the neutral colors of the walls, to the shiny and minimalist furniture. 

"Thank you again for the invitation. Not all men of your rank would have been equally friendly, I guess you are aware of that."

Ren was ridiculously young. This was the first thought that leaped to Hux's mind as soon as the other man turned towards him. The second was that Ren had _always_ seemed much younger than his real age, due to his eternally disoriented expression, his refusal to comply with the mandatory First Order clothing and haircut standards, and, not least, to his perpetual, intolerable pleading pair of brown eyes. The third consideration was that Ren had never spontaneously removed his helmet in his presence in the early stages of their forced collaboration.

It was also true that Hux never had, in the past, invited him to his office for a discussion or for an informal chat. The deserted corridor and Ren's ease in showing him his face might have been clues, but they certainly couldn't be considered proofs. At least for the moment. 

Hux tried his best to offer Ren a friendly smile.

"You must have a terrible opinion of us soldiers, Lord Ren, to think that if there had been someone else in my place, you would not have received such a polite welcome." 

He pointed to the sofa with a broad gesture of his hand.

"Please have a seat. I'll sit at my desk ", he invited Ren. "I realize that mine is a rather spartan accommodation, and perhaps unusual for those unfamiliar with the military world. I was told that you are a knight", he added, heading towards the bookshelf (which seemed to fascinate Ren so much, as if that brute could read more than three sentences in a row) and took the bottle of _Starfire' skee_. "Would you like a drink?"

Ren, who in the meantime had taken place on the couch next to his ugly pile of robes, nodded politely. 

"Yes, please." 

For a few unbearable seconds, the only audible noise inside the room was the delicate clink of the glasses that Hux had quickly started to fill. The Ren spoke again. 

"The Knights of Ren are a young but powerful order. The Supreme Leader has been very generous in entrusting me with the task of guiding them." He cleared his throat. "The code we follow is, let's say, flexible. Suffice it to say that my knights will be at your disposal should you deem it necessary to launch a more, ah, incisive attack on the Rebel forces."

Hux made a noncommittal noise and handed Ren a glass (more full than the etiquette would have liked). 

"Truly fascinating, Lord Ren", he smiled politely. "Would you like some ice with your drink?"

"Sure," Ren replied, absently running a hand through his hair. "I confess my knowledge of alcoholic beverages is rather limited, but I will trust your judgment."

 _Will you ever stop being this predictable,_ thought Hux spitefully, placing an ice cube in Ren's drink. 

Well, predictable maybe wasn't the right term, he mentally corrected himself while taking place on his office chair. Ren was surprisingly talkative. Was it a reaction to the friendliness he had shown him with his invitation? Hux doubted it. Ren rarely showed gratitude.

_Could it be that it had been so long since their first meeting that he forgot what their relationship was like in the beginning?_

From where he was sitting, Hux could observe Ren in all his entirety, and with a little luck catch some signs that could have directed him towards a clearer understanding of the situation. He mechanically registered the movement of the other man's hand between the messy locks of his hair, thicker and wavier than he remembered them, the ink-black contrasting with the white of his skin. _An unconscious expression of discomfort that makes him look more like a teenager than an adult man_. Hux looked away immediately.

"I am pleased with your trust," Hux replied, raising his glass. "I rarely have important visitors on the ship these days. Although I deduce that your permanence among us will be quite long, am I right?" he added, all too aware of how long that stay would have been. "It will be my pleasure to help you integrate with the rest of the crew. You and your knights, of course. Remind me what your specific duties would be, please?"

Instead of answering, Ren took a too long sip from his drink and, from his reaction, he immediately regretted it. Hux watched him struggle with the alcohol, scrunching his nose in distaste. Something cruel arose in his chest, ignited by Ren's pathetic attempt at drinking. 

"Oh, if I had known that I should have initiated you to the pleasures of alcoholic beverages, I would have gotten you something better."

The look Ren gave him could have incinerated him on the spot, had he had the chance. It only lasted for a moment, but it was enough for Hux to briefly enjoy the taste of the other man's discomfort. 

"There is no reason to apologize, Colonel. I understand from your words that you are quite the connoisseur, am I wrong?"

If Ren thought that a veiled allusion to his drinking habits might make him uncomfortable, he was very wrong.

"So it seems," he answered lightly, taking a long and deliberate sip from his own glass without breaking eye contact. "One of my many qualities, I dare say, but I do not wish to monopolize this conversation. I guess we were talking about your and your Knight's duties on this ship?" 

All in all, Ren was making an admirable effort to be affable. Hux saw him hesitate for a split second (probably to decide how much it was worth to antagonize his new colleague in his own quarters), but he quickly regained control of himself.

"To be honest, the Supreme Leader hasn't been very clear about what the future holds for me in regards to the First Order. For the moment he simply advised me to observe how your organization works and learn as much as possible from it. And I am, of course, bound to offer my contribution whenever the number of your ships and soldiers aren't sufficient to overcome the enemy. It is for me a privilege to serve the Supreme Leader and obey his command." 

Hux saw him cast a cautious glance at the glass, obviously wondering whether or not it was worth trying to take a second sip.

Hux sighed. The man was really an overgrown child - a child who had harmed him both physically and psychologically for a whole year. He had tossed him against every available surface, using his magical powers to cut off the air inside his lungs and humiliate him in front of his soldiers. He had forced him to serve under a man who had known him since he was a child, vulnerable and defenseless at the mercy of that animal of his own father.

The Ren sitting in front of him looked little more than a boy, but despite the absence of the scar and the visible attempts he was making to behave like a decent person, he was still the same man for whom Hux had sacrificed everything he had. Overwhelmed by his spite, he savagely wished Ren would suffocate with the whiskey he had offered him. It would have been a fitting end.

He swallowed what was left of his drink in one gulp.

"Speaking of privileges, I understand from your words that you will have quite a flexible schedule, at least at the beginning. So please allow me to give you some advice," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Consider it my welcome gift."

He paused, just enough for him to fix his own gaze into the other man's eyes.

"I like to think of the First Order as a machine, whose functionality depends exclusively on how smoothly all its different components fit together with each other. It would take little - a distraction, a sudden change of direction, an undesirable mishap - to make it slow down. I am not saying that we cannot be open to novelties and, if they bring improvements, they are most welcome! However," he put his elbows on the desk and interlaced his fingers, "what is most appreciated in the First Order is the dedication that drives anyone, from recruits to the army's highest ranks, to ensure that the machine continues to work. I can proudly affirm that I have managed to delete the term individualism from the vocabulary of my soldiers ", he stated, smiling dangerously. "I hope that you will appreciate our way of doing things, and that you will find it stimulating and inspiring."

\--

With Hux's gaze fixed on him, Kylo felt his blood boil in his veins. In retrospect, it was already a miracle that he had managed to resist for so long, trapped in that vicious circle of false smiles and silly conversations, without letting the slightest hint of anger escape. The truth was, he never liked being watched. The pleading eyes full of terror of his enemies, yes, he could bear and perhaps even draw a certain visceral satisfaction from them, but in the cold green eyes of the Colonel there was no trace of fear or awe. No, Hux's eyes spoke only of an unbearable sense of superiority. The short monologue only fueled the flame of his anger. He would almost have preferred to hear him openly express his contempt for him, rather than disguise it with polite and high-sounding words while playing the part of the perfect colleague. Or maybe he thought him so stupid that he couldn't even grasp the underlying message? Whatever his intentions, one thing was sure - Kylo wasn't willing to yield.

"I hope I'm wrong, Colonel, but I have the feeling that you are questioning the legitimacy of my presence on your ship," he put down his glass, aware of the tangible danger that at any moment it would shatter between his fingers, managing to barely resist the temptation to get up and take a firm step in the Colonel's direction. He would have been happy to offer him a demonstration. A first and final taste of what the Force was capable of doing in the hands of an experienced warrior. "Yet it was you who told me, just a few hours ago, that you would never dare question the decisions of the Supreme Leader."

 _Stay focused_ , he tried to remind himself. _Don't let your conscience surrender to anger_. 

It was easier said than done. Before awakening to a life he had thought he had left behind, he would have been horrified to realize how much he longed to hear the sound of Hux's neck snapping under the grasp of invisible hands. He knew what it meant - an unmistakable sign that his alleged repudiation of the Dark Side might not have been as definitive as he had thought - but it didn't matter at the moment. There were just him, Hux, and the palpable tension that hovered in the air.

He saw Hux's eyes widening, truly the portrait of the offended virtue.

"I would never dare, Lord Ren," Hux replied, sliding his chair backward. "I must have been misunderstood. I am sure that the Supreme Leader is the person that more than any other would care that you successfully take part in the efficient mechanism that moves the First Order." He raised to his feet, his glass, now empty, in his hand. "Mine was just an attempt - although obviously clumsy, despite my good faith - to make you aware of the principles on which the success of our organization is founded." He went back to the bookshelf, undoubtedly to pour himself a second drink. "It was not my intention to offend you, Lord Ren, or to make you feel uncomfortable. However, I realize that I could have expressed myself less severely. You must be tired from the journey, and you will certainly not want to listen to me talking about order and discipline this late into the _Gamma_ shift."

He raised the bottle, offering Ren a second shot. Ren shook his head.

The whiskey would hardly have clouded his senses, but it was better not to take the risk. Of one thing Hux was right: that nightmarish day had exhausted him.

"Apologies accepted, Colonel," he said, in a tone of voice that suggested the exact opposite. 

The man Kylo knew would have preferred to get shot point-blank in the stomach and be left on the ground to agonize rather than give him a more or less sincere apology. It was becoming increasingly clear that they were both playing a dangerous game on a battlefield very different from those he was used to. Kylo had the advantage of knowing his opponent better than the other man did, perhaps even to the point of being able to anticipate his moves. However, he would still have done better not to underestimate him. Hux could be sneaky, he knew, which he had always found annoying - not to mention dangerous.

"You have a peculiar accent, you know," Hux then said, almost casually, as if to ease the tension that had been created.

Kylo decided to play along and indulge Hux in his attempt to ease the tension. It would have given him all the necessary time to study his reactions and observe him in what was basically his natural habitat. He took a couple of sips of whiskey from his still half-full glass before answering.

"No, I don't think anyone has ever pointed this out to me. On the other hand, it has been a long time since I have had the opportunity to have such an interesting conversation with anyone other than the Supreme Leader. Occasions like this are more unique than rare."

"I hope I haven't made such a bad impression on you that I have definitely compromised the chance to make these occasions less rare", he heard Hux answering, almost with a shade of boldness. "In fact, I find myself in a very similar situation. Don't get me wrong, I have great regard for my men, but out of respect for the protocol I can't afford to give too much confidence to-", he made a vague gesture with his hand. "In short, it's not proper. I am almost always the most senior officer on this ship, and even when I am not, I certainly cannot say that the company is...stimulating. But you," he added, leaning on the desk. "You are something that the First Order has never seen before, and the particular relationship that binds us both to the Supreme Leader makes me think how, despite our obvious differences, we must have lots in common." 

Ren ardently wished for Hux to end that ridiculous farce for the sake of his own mental stability, but the Colonel was obviously of a completely different opinion.

"What I would like you to understand, Lord Ren, is that I am thrilled to finally be able to meet you in person! And that, given the nature of our future collaboration, it is my great interest to know what you think - about the First Order's actions, first and foremost, and about our allies as well." He raised the glass to his lips. "Not to mention our enemies."

Kylo raised an eyebrow. Was it possible that he had misunderstood? No, his senses hadn't been clouded by the alcohol. Hux had really asked him to meet from time to time to have a pleasant chat over a nice glass of whiskey. If until one moment before the fact that Hux was plotting something behind his back was only a simple supposition, that proposal made Kylo certain. There was no reason why such a paranoid man wished to spend more time than what was strictly necessary with someone he had every reason to suspect had been sent by the Supreme Leader to keep him under control. Kylo could almost imagine Hux coming up with the perfect plan to get him out of the way, so that the Colonel could then play the role of the heartbroken friend and colleague. He would have been above suspicion. The whole crew could have testified how good the two had been getting along, no reason for the poor Colonel to attempt the life of his closest collaborator, right? 

The smile on Hux's lips, a little too similar to that of a predator showing sharp canines to scare the opponent than that of a man, told him everything he needed to know. 

For his part, Kylo was aware that being able to get as close as possible to the enemy before inflicting the killing blow was an opportunity he could not miss. 

"Your interest flatters me, Colonel. Maybe you are right; maybe you and I are really more alike than I imagined," he responded, carefully weighing his words. “I am happy to accept your invitation. I confess that after hearing the Supreme Leader give your praises on more than one occasion, I was eager to meet you. Judging by the iron grip you seem to have on your officers, all the good things he has told me about you are true."

The more he spoke, the easier it became to carry on the pretense, to continue the conversation with those feignedly respectful tones that long ago would have made him sick. Or maybe it was just the alcohol that was starting to show its effects. Not that it mattered much. 

"I don't think I'm in a position to criticize your course of action - not yet, at least. You are the man of war, after all, and I have the feeling that I will be able to learn a lot from you. However…" he took a moment to reflect before continuing.

 _How far could Hux's fake politeness go, if provoked?_ "  
  
I fear that the Order is overlooking something extremely important. I guess you've heard of Luke Skywalker? The Rebels are a tenacious enemy, I do not doubt that, but believe me when I tell you that an entire army would not be enough to stop a single fighter experienced in the ways of the Force. As long as Skywalker is alive, the First Order can never truly triumph. That man is not only a warrior, he is a symbol of hope for all the rebels who oppose yours - our vision, and I am sure that you too know how dangerous hope can be."

\-- 

Hux had to restrain himself from bursting out laughing. Of course he had heard of Luke Skywalker, every damned day of his life for nearly six years. He even had the pleasure of seeing him in person before he ridiculed Ren and his non-existent leadership skills only to, apparently, vanish into thin air and become, according to the man sitting in front of him, one with the Force - whatever that bullshit ever meant.

So was this what Ren was really trying to suggest him on the day of their first meeting? To throw all caution to the wind and immediately go after Skywalker?

The ludicrous proposal dispelled any doubts Hux had regarding the possibility that Ren had also been involved in his bizarre time travel. No one in possession of their mental faculties could have suggested that killing Skywalker was a good idea, not after every attempt to confront him had resulted in Ren failing spectacularly. 

Kylo Ren was singularly obtuse, that was true, but there was a limit even to that man's idiocy.

"Of course, Lord Ren. After all, the First Order was born from the ashes of the Empire," he answered. "I was not aware that Skywalker was such a driving force for the Rebellion. I guess that being Organa's brother has something to do with it," he added, with an air of disinterest. "At the moment, Skywalker does not constitute an immediate danger to the First Order. He chose to retire from the public scene a long time ago. However, you must have had your good reasons to bring up his name. What can you tell me about him?"

He watched Kylo taking a long sip from his glass, now almost empty.

_Stroke a nerve, haven't I?_

"Yes, let's say I knew him.", Ren answered. "Maybe not as good as I thought at the beginning, but that's another story. He is a disillusioned old man, a coward who decided to disappear when his-" he took a deep breath. For a fleeting moment, Hux believed he saw a shadow passing on his face. _Interesting._

" -when those close to him needed him most," Ren continued. "He is dangerous, however - as dangerous as everyone capable of bending the Force to their will is." He fixed his gaze on Hux, and added as if it was a second thought. "Mine is just a warning, of course. A piece of advice I would like you to consider."

Alcohol was perhaps not making Ren drunk (probably, given the man's size, it would have taken well more than one glass of whiskey), but it was certainly making him talkative. Hux decided to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunity to find an answer to a question that had always intrigued him: what had happened, many years before, that had caused Ren to hate Skywalker to the point of sacrificing troops and resources, only to put an end to his existence?

Hux stood up and circled the desk, eliminating the safety distance he had initially placed between himself and Ren. His guest seemed harmless enough, at least for the moment. 

He decided to lean back against the edge of the desk, half-sitting on top of it, looking relaxed and moderately indifferent. He stretched his legs out, for good measure, elegantly crossing his feet at the ankles. 

"I am very interested in your history with Skywalker, Lord Ren," he declared, feeling bold. "Since you are certainly not taking the issue lightly, and the danger represented by that man leaves no room for-", _ah_. He blinked, his thoughts uncharacteristically out of focus. He shouldn't have jumped out of his chair after having two drinks on an empty stomach. "Any information you will provide me about his whereabouts will be of vital importance in deciding which course of action to take. Destroying the Resistance's morale is... Remind me in the morning to educate you on our Propaganda Department, will you?" 

-

Kylo was surprised to see Hux leave his seat on the other side of the desk and come a little closer. He had always associated the man with watchful eyes and clenched teeth, with stiffness and contempt. Now, relaxed as Kylo had never seen him before, Hux looked as if he genuinely wanted to establish a sort of complicity between the two of them. As if… No. Kylo quickly pushed the thought away. It was absurd. Even more ridiculous than the possibility of Hux time traveling together with him. 

He grounded himself on the implicit question that Hux had asked him. 

He had the Colonel exactly where he wanted him to be. Bringing up Skywalker had been a gamble, but a productive one. There was no way Hux had anything to do with whatever thing was happening to him. 

The Hux he knew would have manifested an aura of annoyance and exasperation at the mere mention of Skywalker's name. He would have tried to hide it behind his words, but his presence in the Force would have left no room for doubt. Despite the General being Force null, his Force signature had always spoken volumes to Kylo. 

This younger version of him, however... his reaction to the name of Luke Skywalker had been too genuine, too politely interested to be a bluff. 

That was precisely what Kylo needed, the final proof that the man in front of him did not know him, never shared six years with him on a Star Destroyer, never attempted on his life, never betrayed him. 

Never hated him. 

_It's almost a pity,_ he thought, looking at a version of Hux he would never have the chance to know better. 

The time had come. 

"It was Skywalker who trained me before the Supreme Leader found me. I was just a kid, so I trusted him as I could trust a parent. I had no idea that he feared my strength to the point of wanting to eliminate me. I woke up just in time to see the glow of his lightsaber shine above me," he took a deep breath, ad he lied. "Since then, I have had no doubts about my future. My strength, like my loyalty, is best spent in the service of the First Order."

The hint of a smile appeared on Hux's face. 

"I am glad to hear that, Lord Ren." 

A strange kind of silence had descended on the room. 

There would have been no better occasion than that. Affected by Kylo's tragic story as a Jedi apprentice, his reflexes slowed by the whiskey he drank, it would have been impossible for Hux to react to a sudden attack. 

Kylo set the glass down carefully, then rose from the sofa with the same apparent calm the Colonel had shown, measuring every movement. He felt almost like a wild animal in the act of approaching a prey oblivious of its imminent fate. Which wasn't that far from the truth. Except that the prey in question, although made less cautious by the fumes of alcohol, could probably still be lethally dangerous. 

He moved closer. There were a series of details that looked utterly out of place on Hux's face. A delicate blush has spread to his cheeks - probably an effect of the two drinks he just had. And there was something baffling in his gaze, something inquisitive and yet not entirely malevolent. 

Kylo had to resist the urge to probe his thoughts, not to disturb the fragile stillness that had just come to his aid.

He held out his hand. 

"And I'm glad I can count on your help, Colonel. I have the impression that our alliance is already bearing his fruits."

He waited for Hux to hold his hand, for him to indulge in that single moment of fatal distraction, as he called on the Force and prepared to tighten an invisible grip around his neck.

"Happy that we are on the same page," Hux replied, raising his face towards him and taking his hand. "I am more convinced than ever that you will become a valuable asset to our troops."

Something wild flickered in his gaze, and Kylo knew he had been studied, dissected, analyzed, and examined for the whole evening. 

_Poor paranoid Hux_ , he thought, almost with fondness. _Even if I gave you all the chances in the universe, you would never change._

Kylo felt his power stir within him like a caged animal. He welcomed the familiar tingle on his skin, and he thought it was a real miracle that he had managed to keep it at bay for so long. He looked the Colonel straight in the eye, anticipating the moment he would see him slump, struggle, and finally die, his dreams of power and destruction fading away with the last flickers of his conscience.

"I'm afraid we'll never know it for sure, Colonel. But trust me, this is for the best," he said, finally letting the intangible fingers of the Force wrap around Hux's throat.

He could now freely explore Hux's emotions - the paralyzing fear, the feeling of betrayal, the boiling anger shortly replaced by a frantic sense of desperation. 

"Ren-" Hux gasped, trying in vain to escape his choke. "Let _me_ -," he managed to exhale, his eyes already unfocused. "This is-"

Then even his last breath broke in his throat, and Hux fell motionless into Kylo’s arms.

Kylo did not look away. He observed his operate in silence, only marginally aware that he did not feel that deep sense of satisfaction he had imagined he would have felt watching Hux die. 

There was nothing else he could have done, he told himself, carefully placing Hux's body on the floor. He was a threat to the entire Galaxy, and had to be stopped before making the First Order too powerful. Only the stars knew how ferociously Hux’s hate could burn everything that it touched.

He didn't even have time to think about what to do after leaving Hux's office, when he felt his breath die in his throat. He instinctively put his hand around his neck, as if looking for the source of that sudden pressure, finding nothing inside his throat, not even the familiar feeling of the Force in the hands of a skilled opponent. The more he tried to catch his breath, the less air seemed to reach his lungs, his chest crushed by an intolerable weight. The whole room began to whirl around him. He staggered, stumbling on the Colonel's lifeless body lying on the floor.

_No no no no._

He wanted to scream - either in anger or pain, it made no difference - but what escaped from his lips was little more than a strangled moan. Kylo fell to his knees, gasping as if he was drowning, trying in vain to fend off the slow but inexorable rise of black spots at the edge of his visual field. He found himself lying on the ground, his blind eyes turned towards the dazzling lights of the ceiling, the furious beating of his heart filling his ears.

With a last, desperate gasp, Kylo stopped fighting.

And then everything went dark.

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggering contents (spoiler alert): temporary character death, force choking, swearing, alcohol intake, manipulative behavior.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with our story, your kudos and comments have been most appreciated!
> 
> As usual, check the notes at the end of the chapter for a comprehensive list of potentially triggering contents.

Hux fumbled in the dark. A stabbing pain, stretching from his throat down to his lungs, was setting his body on fire. Something thick and heavy covered his face, strangling his breath. He squirmed aimlessly, trying to kick the invisible enemy who was crushing him to the ground.

_ Ren. _

Ren was squeezing his throat in his fingers, he was clutching his windpipe with the sheer force of his mind, he was strangling him not as a threat or to bend him to his will, he was killing him,  _ he was killing him, he was really doing it in the end and it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair it had to end this way it shouldn't have it shouldn't _

The next breath set fire to his lungs. Hux began to cough convulsively, curling up in a fetal position, his arms wrapped around his body. Slowly, his heartbeat began to calm down. The darkness remained, but it had turned into a warm and soft dusk, which enveloped Hux as if to soothe him. He opened his eyes.

He was under a blanket. A blanket that smelled of the  regulation  antibacterial detergent that was used aboard all First Order ships.

Hux sat up abruptly. He was, unequivocally, in his bedroom.

"Lights thirty percent," he ordered, surprised to hear his voice come out clear and sharp from the bottom of his throat. As if no hands had ever broken his neck. As if Ren had never grabbed his throat and squeezed.

Was it possible that he had imagined everything?

The sound of a string of messages sent to his Datapad startled him. He reached out to the bedside table and grabbed the device. A series of texts Hux knew all too well appeared on the screen.

The room began to whirl around him.

"This cannot be," he stuttered, shaking his head as if the Datapad screen could understand him. "This is completely out of the question."

\--

It was still dark when Kylo opened his eyes. Despite the vivid memory of the agonizing pain that had traversed his chest just before he lost consciousness, he felt relieved. It had all been a dream. He knew of people who claimed to have seen their past flow at great speed before their eyes when put face to face with death. He felt a strange comfort at the thought that the Force, instead of showing him a quick summary of his short existence, had chosen to torment him with a vision of what he had never been able to accomplish in his life. A dream, nothing more, sent to prepare him to an eternal slumber in a perennial darkness. Kylo was not so naïve as to hope to have earned a place among the ghosts of his predecessors, not after a lifetime wasted harnessing his power to destroy and conquer rather than protect and defend. But that was fine. That was what he deserved, and he felt strangely at peace with it. 

At least until a noise that sounded too much like someone politely knocking on a superior's door broke the silence.

_ No. _

The sound was repeated two, three times with increasing insistence. Kylo rolled onto his side, now fully feeling the uncomfortable mattress underneath. He reached out to his right to find the switch that he knew - he feared - he would have found nearby. Once again, the unexpected light hurt his eyes. Once again, once he got used to the brightness, he found himself staring at the gray walls of a small passenger ship's cabin.

_ No. It's not possible.  _

"In a few minutes we will reach the Finalizer hangar, sir," said the voice on the other side of the door, following a script that Kylo could have recited from memory. "You asked me to warn you in advance, so that you can prepare for your meeting with Colonel Hux."

"What does it mean?" Kylo muttered to himself. A question addressed to no one in particular, which threatened to remain unanswered for a long time.

\--

Surviving was something Armitage Hux had in his blood. In a way, he had always known that. He had outlived his father, the New Republic, Admiral Brooks, Cardinal, Pryde, and the Resistance. Apparently, he had outlived Ren as well.

Something wanted him not to die. Hux had never been a person to believe in the supernatural, but now his certainties were slowly beginning to crumble. Twice someone had tried to kill him, and twice he had been brought back to life. And not merely in perfect control of all his physical and mental faculties, but back in time, to a precise moment - to the day of his first meeting with Kylo Ren.

That couldn't be accidental. Something - Hux refused to call it Force or even Maker - evidently had plans for him.

Hux had always known, from a very young age, that he was destined for something great. He hadn't endured all kinds of physical and mental deprivation and abuse; he hadn't spent every single day of his life - every waking minute - devoting himself to the First Order for no reason other than a fanatic dedication to a common cause. A glorious future had been set aside for him, a future that now manifested itself to Armitage Hux in all its clarity:  _ kill Ren and Snoke, and take the throne _ .

Driven more than ever by wild fanaticism, and confident in what the Galaxy was laying down in front of his path, Hux headed for the hangar.  
Kylo Ren was on borrowed time. 

\--

Kylo dressed with a series of mechanical movements while his mind wandered in search of a plausible explanation for that absurd twist of fate. Maybe he had been too impulsive, he conceded. He had been arrogant, thinking he knew the task that the universe had entrusted him with, and he ignored the signs. 

_ It wouldn't have been the first time.  _

He had little doubt, however, that Hux was his objective. He may have miscalculated  _ how _ to kill him, or  _ when _ . He had let himself be driven by adrenaline without considering the immediate consequences of his own actions. Even if he managed to get away with it, and convince the senior officers that the Colonel's death had not been caused by a direct attack on his person but by a mere and unfortunate accident, Palpatine would not have been fooled that easily. The Supreme Leader would have summoned him and asked to tell his version of events, and however much Kylo would have tried to hide his memories from him, Palpatine would still have suspected. A suspicion that would soon turn into certainty, perhaps challenging him to launch a premature and lethal attack on the Resistance forces before the First Order began to show the first signs of weakness, just to prove his loyalty. 

So the Force hadn't punished him, not really. It had only reset the clock, giving him a chance to adjust his shot. _Good._ _This time I would not fail_.

These were the thoughts that stirred in Kylo Ren's mind as he descended the ramp and crossed the long corridor formed by the stormtroopers gathered to welcome him, finally stopping in front of Hux.

"Colonel," he said, trying at the same time to dismiss the terrible feeling of déjà-vu and remember the exact words he had spoken to Hux on that occasion. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Welcome aboard the Finalizer, Lord Ren," Hux replied, as expected. "My men will take care of your escort." He nodded to an officer, just like the day before. "Please, would you follow me," he said again to Kylo, his expression neutral although moderately inquisitive. "The Supreme Leader has requested your presence."

Just like the previous day, Hux guided Kylo through the lower levels of the ship. This time, however, to Kylo's great curiosity, he took a short detour.

"Our technicians are finishing the preparations in the audience chamber," he apologized, entering a corridor to the right of the elevators. "They were expecting you in half an hour. I ask your forgiveness on their behalf for their poor organization. I recognize it is not the best first impression, still I trust that you will soon have the opportunity to change your opinion on the efficiency of our communication system", he said, as he entered the access code to open the door of a small conference room.

In all honesty, Kylo knew that Hux could not have cared less about the opinion he might or might not have had of his men. He had always given it very little importance in the past, and there was no reason to believe that something had changed. Not for Hux, in any case. 

"I asked to prepare a small refreshment, in the meantime," he explained, pointing to a modest buffet that had been set up on a table.

\--

The contents of the jugs and teapots had already been adequately inspected by Hux, so to speak, just before Ren's ship landed.

His father had always considered poisoning the last refuge of women and cowards; but his father was, after all, an arrogant relic of the Empire that had died dissolving in a bacta tank. Brendol never understood the beauty of silently sipping a cup of tea, protected by a drug that would prevent his body from absorbing the toxin, while his enemies gasped, their clouded eyes turned towards the sky as a trickle of white foam trickled down their chin. Certain delicacies were not for everyone. Hux knew it all too well. 

\--

"I am truly impressed, Colonel. Let it not be said that the First Order has little regard for its allies," Kylo declared, letting the vocoder mask the bewilderment in his voice. 

He looked skeptically at the food and drinks lined up on the table. If he had had a choice, he would not have hesitated to refuse the offer. But after the Force had made him experience the painful consequences of being openly hostile to Hux from the start, his options were drastically reduced. He cast a last glance in Hux's direction, who stared at him with the same bored and impassive expression he had worn the previous day, and he realized it was better if he played along. 

He took off his helmet, placing it on a nearby table, and waited for Hux to make the first move. As much as he wanted to make an excellent first impression, Hux's weird behavior was telling him to stay on guard. 

Almost as if he had been reading his mind, the Colonel poured himself a glass of the blood-red liquid that filled one of the carafes. 

Kylo allowed himself to relax a little. 

He still wasn't too keen on consuming the food and drink Hux was offering him, but he couldn't find a good reason to refuse. He would have plenty of time to reflect on the significance of the unexpected development after meeting the Supreme Leader, when he would be allowed to spend some time alone in his new quarters.

For the moment, it would have been enough for him to be sure that Hux drank first.

"Please help yourself," Hux exhorted him, pointing at the same jug he had just used. "You must have had a long journey." 

Kylo tried to push his conscience towards Hux's thoughts, but he found only impatience, annoyance, and a great hurry. Justifiable emotions, given the situation and the imminent meeting with Snoke, and considered the nature of the person to which they belonged. 

Hux brought the glass to his lips and calmly took a sip of juice.

Somehow reassured by Hux's behavior and by his thoughts, Kylo did the same. 

\--

He had felt the tentacles of the Force probing the surface of his thoughts the moment Ren had laid his gaze upon the buffet. The warlock's talent for dissecting his thoughts and emotions no longer frightened Hux as it once did, not after he had been able, for a whole year, to pass information to the Resistance. Still, as much as his ability to build mental walls had improved, dealing with Ren's cursed witchcraft was never pleasant. 

Thankfully, the emotions behind which he had shielded his thoughts were so generic and uninteresting that Ren had abandoned his mind almost immediately. 

Obviously, as expected, Ren would drink only when he was sure that the drinks he was offered had not been adulterated.  _ Poor idiot _ , Hux thought, taking another sip of the juice. The combination of gastroprotective drugs and antitoxin that he had taken that morning before heading to the hangar would have been enough to make him drink at least a couple of glasses without his body being affected in the least.

Hux had not used Zolall's poison to eliminate an adversary in many years. He had discovered its existence when he was still a cadet. He immediately fell in love with the substance - more discreet than the Dozoisian poison, which made drinks sparkling and whose acrid odor was difficult to disguise, it was also relatively easy to obtain if required as an anesthetic. The amount that Hux had poured into the jugs would have been enough to send a grown man to his grave in four minutes - probably six in Ren's case, given his size.

"As a military order, we are rather unfamiliar with comfort," he replied, taking another sip from his glass. "And we rarely have guests over. I wish I could offer you something better, but I'm sure there will be time to fix that." He raised the goblet slightly, looking Ren straight in the eye. "Welcome aboard, Lord Ren. I have been looking forward to this moment."

\--

Any doubts Kylo might have had about his real intentions were dispelled as quickly as they had manifested. Hux had agreed to join him in that little welcome celebration without batting an eye, without even trying to divert the conversation, which led him to think that this version of Armitage Hux simply supposed that the best way to coax him was offering him some refreshment after the journey he had to face to reach the Finalizer. 

"I'm glad to say the same, Colonel. The Supreme Leader told me about you and your undertakings in the First Order's service and its noble cause", Kylo followed suit, raising the glass in turn before bringing it to his lips.

The taste wasn't entirely unpleasant, he had to admit, although he couldn't quite say what kind of drink it was. Only then did Kylo realize how thirsty he had been. To be honest, he didn't even remember when it was the last time he'd had drank something that refreshing. He felt a slight twinge in his stomach just as he reached out to grab the jug again, but he ignored it. In all likelihood, it was just his nerves, already tense at the prospect of a new meeting with Palpatine.

\--

Hux just raised an eyebrow as he saw Ren empty the entire contents of the glass in one gulp, as if he had just come out of a week of wandering in the Jakku desert. Not that it bothered him that, for once, that incommensurable idiot was making his job easier - far from it. More than anything else, he was surprised by how, despite having known him for almost seven years now, Ren continued to amaze him with his blatant obtuseness.

He elegantly swirled the reddish liquid inside his glass.  _ Four minutes. _

"Oh, really?" he asked, hinting at a smile. "And what did he tell you about me?"

Ren refilled his glass again.

_ Nevermind _ , Hux thought, unable, by now, to prevent his smile from widening to reveal a row of very white and perfectly straight teeth.  _ Two minutes. _

\--

Kylo should have known from the way Hux smiled at him. It wasn't the smile of someone displaying courtesy to conceal their contempt, nor that of a commander genuinely eager to start a new venture. It was the smile of someone who knew that something both wonderful and terrifying was about to happen.

"Snoke has always declared that you were a man of great ambition, but above all of immense talent. A strategist, whose potential- " his voice died in his throat.

What had previously seemed only a fleeting sting suddenly turned into an unbearable burning, which from his stomach's pit spread throughout his body, as if he had just swallowed burning coals. The glass, still half full, slipped from his hands and shattered into a thousand pieces on the polished floor. Kylo instinctively pressed the palm of his hand against his chest, but the pain worsened. His gaze fell on the handful of shards of glass scattered at his feet. When he raised his head, Hux was still smiling at him. There was a malevolent gleam in his eyes, which until that moment he had managed to hide from him - or maybe Kylo had been too careless to notice. It was at that moment that he understood.

"You!" 

He could barely snarl. He attempted to call the Force to himself to wipe that damned grin off Hux's lips once and for all, but in vain. He felt weak, as if his energies had suddenly abandoned him. Just squeezing his fingers and hoping that the invisible hand of his power would tighten around Hux's neck would have taken a colossal effort. A moment later, his knees gave way as well, and Kylo fell on the ground, only vaguely aware of the gloating figure of the Colonel looming above him. The pain wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was being forced to watch Hux as he slowly approached him, that revolting smirk impressed on his face, and being unable to spit promises of vengeance that he would never be able to keep, to let him know how passionately his hatred for him was burning.

Once again, darkness finally enveloped him, tearing him away from his pain.

\--

It was a sublime scene. Of grandiose shows, in the course of his life, Hux had seen plenty. Nothing compared to the feeling, beautiful and terrible, that he had felt when Starkiller Base was inaugurated, and a beam of dazzling red light had obliterated the Hosnian System. It had been an extraordinary emotion like Hux had never felt before, better than when he saw his father dissolve into a tank of putrid water, more powerful than an orgasm, more blinding than a supernova.

Seeing Ren collapsing in agony on the floor, his face the picture of a desperate and hateful awareness, was perhaps not so breathtaking - but it indeed came close.

He slowly leaned over him, hoping he was still alive to feel pain, and fear, and the fingers of Hux's hand stroking his face with mock pity, from the cheekbone that would forever be devoid of that horrible scar up to the youthful, soft shape of his lips.

"Me," he replied, his mouth tilted downwards in a parody of a compassionate pout. "I hope that wherever you are going, Ren, it will be a horrible place. And may you stay there forever, while I'll take the Galaxy for myself instead."

A frightening sense of nausea suddenly took hold of him. Hux began to sweat cold, despite the warmth of the fabric he was wearing, and a bitter, almost metallic taste covered his tongue. 

"What-" he tried to ask the empty room, but no sound came from his lips. The sense of nausea had been intensified by a frenzied tremor, which ran through his body from head to toes. 

_ He had taken the antidote. It wasn't possible. It never happened before.  _

He tried to get back on his feet, but to no avail. He collapsed on Kylo Ren's still warm body, while a cold numbness slowly started to paralyze every muscle in his body.

_ No no no no no please please no please no not again not again please please _

The numbness spread to Hux's heart, and the lights went out.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggering contents: temporary character death, poisoning, description of poisoning effects, description of choking effects, manipulative behavior.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for your kind comments, we love you!  
> Again, please refer to the notes at the end of the chapter for a comprehensive list of triggering contents.

_ Are you shitting me.  _

Lying in the darkness of his room, damp hair stuck to his forehead, Armitage Hux was dealing with the mysterious power that, for the third time, had brought him back to life.

His emotional state could be summed up in one word: outraged.

All his life he had strived to break free from a higher authority - his father, Ren, Snoke, the fucking Force - only to be treated like a spring-loaded puppet, bounced back and forth and made to die repeatedly only to be brought back to life and forced to start over again.

If what was making Hux reenact his first meeting with Ren had plans for him that went beyond killing him on a daily basis, it had better make them clear. 

It was not like Hux had stopped believing that eliminating Ren would make all the puzzle pieces finally fall into place. He just wasn't particularly keen on dying again, and it was clear that Ren's proximity was a danger to his survival. (Not that it was anything new, but still.)

Therefore he decided to do the only sensible and reasonable thing that his brain suggested: he would avoid Ren at all costs and, in the meantime, he would seek useful information to unravel the mystery of what was happening to him.

He quickly came up with an engagement that could not be postponed, and he ordered Phasma to take his place in the hangar and escort Ren to Snoke. He sat down at his desk, still in his dressing gown, and logged on to one of the databases that contained information about certain populations which, if his memory served him right, claimed to be able to change the flow of time in their favor.

After all, he had to start somewhere, right?

\--

Even in the dark, Kylo knew where he was. Oh, how he would have wanted to be wrong! But it really seemed that the universe and the Force had not yet finished playing with him. He sat up, turning the lights on and finding himself staring at the grey walls of his cabin for the third time. Hux's irritating voice still echoed in his ears, addressing incomprehensible but clearly derisive words to him as he laid dying on the floor. Kylo clenched his fists in a desperate attempt to fend off the blind fury that threatened to overcome him at the mere memory of Hux's smile. 

There had been a moment before he died on Exegol, a moment when he turned his back on a past of tyranny and destruction and he finally embraced the Light. The feelings of hatred he had promised to banish from his heart were now knocking on his door again, familiar and nearly comforting, old friends that had kept him company for most of his life. 

It was almost pleasant to feel them coursing through his veins, mixing up with blood and adrenaline. He knew that a part of himself, the darkest part hidden in the tangle of his soul, wanted nothing more than to surrender to those feelings. But he had promised. He would not succumb to the Dark side again. 

_ Focus _ , he told himself.  _ Eyes on the target _ .

Easier said than done, now that the few certainties he possessed had been swept away. The only thing he was sure about was Hux's role in that game of fate, a game whose rules were becoming more chaotic and elusive with every new move. 

Unlike all the other players, who for two consecutive days had done nothing but address him the same gestures, the same glances, the same words, Hux had been the only one who demonstrated the ability to make changes to the script. 

Although the idea of dealing again with Hux was repulsive, Kylo knew he had to find out to what extent the bastard was involved in that absurd story. He had no choice but to corner him as soon as they were alone and make him talk. 

Kylo got out of bed, not bothering to wait for his attendant to inform him of his imminent arrival on the Finalizer. He quickly dressed, and he mentally prepared himself to face the Colonel for the third time.

As soon as he realized that Hux wasn't waiting for him in the hangar, Kylo knew that something was wrong. The small welcome ceremony was carried out as usual - with the only difference that it was not the Colonel who did the honors, since he seemed to have unexpectedly deserted the opportunity, but Phasma. Kylo sighed. He had no illusions that he could get her to his side. The deep feeling of loyalty that bound Phasma to Hux was not a secret, and Kylo remembered all too well how she had never hesitated to take Hux's side during the numerous verbal confrontations that had taken place on the deck of the Finalizer for six long years. On other circumstances, Kylo might have admired that kind of loyalty. At that moment, however, Phasma was just another obstacle that stood between himself and his goal.

"I was told that Colonel Hux himself would be welcoming me," he said, as they walked side by side through the corridors of the Star Destroyer.

"The Colonel is indisposed," was the mechanical reply he received, quick enough to seem prepared in advance. It probably was. "He has entrusted me with the task of escorting you to the conference chamber for your meeting with the Supreme Leader. He also asked me to let you know that he is extremely sorry not to be able to attend in person, but that he has every intention of seeing you as soon as possible."

Fortunately, Kylo convinced her without too much fuss to leave him alone in front of the automatic elevator doors - on which he had no intention of getting on anyway. He even remembered to mutter a few words of acknowledgment, just to give a vague show of goodwill, before turning his attention to something much more important. He didn't know where Hux was or what he was doing, but one thing was certain: he was on the ship. 

\--

A message from Phasma notified Hux, in order, that Ren had arrived, that he had been escorted to the elevator, and that it was the last time she would do something like this at the last minute. Hux sighed, and went back to work. He was almost surprised that Snoke hadn't sent for him, but evidently the old corpse Palpatine was hiding behind was having enough fun with his new apprentice to care for his absence.

Indeed, now that he thought better of it, Snoke had only begun to show serious interest in him when he had finally been promoted to General - which would not have happened, if his calculations were correct, before eight months at least.

There were many issues on which it was worth reflecting. Hux had always assumed that Snoke had chosen him for his extraordinary leadership skills, and, in part, that was undoubtedly true. However, Hux's capabilities had begun to emerge well before his appointment to the First Order fleet's highest rank, and certainly well before Ren's arrival. Why had it always seemed to him, then, that Snoke had begun to burden him with pressure and responsibilities only after Ren had finally settled on board the Finalizer?

Hux didn’t remember much about the relationship he and Ren had in that first eight months. Ren was little more than a fleeting presence aboard, and even when he wasn't, his duties rarely had anything to do with Hux's own work. Whole months could therefore pass without the two of them exchanging more than a nod.

Then Hux had finally been promoted to General, and Snoke had decided to give Ren a leadership role as well. The rest came quite by itself.

There had always been something wrong with the whole affair - but Hux could have never pinpointed precisely what it was. Even now, a weird sort of understanding seemed to want to dance in front of his face like an annoying fly, but every time the Colonel reached out to grab it, it vanished into thin air.

Incredible how Ren always managed to be a distraction despite being at different levels of distance from him.

Hux adjusted his dressing gown over his shoulders, and went back to work.

  
  


\--

  
  


As he had imagined, the Colonel was nowhere to be found. The control rooms were crowded with lower-ranking officers who, as he passed, performed a stiff military salute, a brief nod, or directly opted to ignore his presence as if even speaking to him meant immediately becoming a moving target. True to Hux's words, the machine that the man was so proud of worked flawlessly, even in his absence... which only made Kylo's futile search for him even more irritating with every second that passed. Irritating and, frankly, incomprehensible. There was no reason why the Colonel had deemed it necessary to go into hiding on the day of his arrival on the Finalizer. In addition to the envy and ill-concealed contempt that Hux had shown towards him since their first meeting, obviously, but his personal likes and dislikes had never prevented him from carrying out the tasks assigned to him with impeccable efficiency. Hard to believe he was doing it right now. It was much more likely that it was something different, something meaningful. Perhaps it was pure instinct, or perhaps Hux was more insightful than Kylo would have expected, and while he had no way of knowing precisely what had happened in previous cycles, something had suggested him to avoid Kylo, that day.    


_ But what if he knew.  _

The possibility that Hux could be directly involved in the Force's inscrutable plan was, again, ludicrous. What could the Force ever want from someone like him? Someone who could not see beyond their own ambitions, whose fame was due solely to the destruction and suffering he had inflicted on other living beings in the failed attempt to restore a semblance of order in the Galaxy?

Yet, as ridiculous as the idea was, the more Kylo advanced along the corridors of the Finalizer the more he realized that that was the only possible answer. The Hux he knew would never have done anything so reckless as poison a colleague in plain sight if he hadn't been desperate. He must have been up to something. And, whatever it was, Kylo needed to find him. 

Kylo came to a halt in front of his final destination: the door to the Colonel's quarters. Now, if he had just pushed the buzzer to request a private audience, Hux would have easily found a way to ignore it. He would come up with some pathetic excuse, perhaps pretending to be indisposed, as Phasma already told him. The biggest mistake Kylo could have made now would be to allow him to escape. So he decided to appeal to the power of the Force to creep into Hux's mind through the closed door and convey an unmistakable message to him.

"We need to talk."

  
  


\--

  
  


Hux was sitting at his desk, an almost finished cigarra in his right hand and the butts of three others abandoned in the ashtray. He was absentmindedly sipping a cup of tea, while scrolling pages after pages crammed with useless data and superfluous information. Interplanetary ethnography was a discipline with which the Colonel was not particularly familiar. He had always admired those who possessed the gift - certainly innate and not acquired, at least not for him - of knowing how to deal with people to the point of being able to adapt the multiple economic and social systems of the Galaxy to the imperialist structure of the First Order through the assimilation and the subsequent annihilation of local conventions. However, for the Colonel, diplomatic victories were more efficiently achieved with money and armaments than with field research.

The last couple of hours had only confirmed what he had always known. There was no way to separate, within the myriad of local traditions, the ravings of a mystic from the concrete, real and irrefutable evidence of the existence of a phenomenon comparable to the one that was happening to him. He took yet another sip of tea, feeling increasingly irritated. The day was turning out to be a complete waste of time.

It was at that moment that he felt a presence in the room. A presence made of phantom fingers that brushed his mind with little kindness, making him shiver from head to toe. A presence, unfortunately, all too well known. And that presence, as it seemed, wanted to talk to him.

_ Yeah, sure as shit you just want to talk.  _

Hux ran towards his bedroom, closing the sliding door that separated it from the office behind him. He opened the top drawer of the bedside table, grabbed the blaster, took the safety off, and hurried to the emergency exit that he had installed behind his wardrobe.

A durasteel wall was standing in its place. 

Hux swore under his breath. The force of habit had made him forget a detail that now would probably cost him his life: he would not install a private access to his rooms for at least two more years.

_ Fuck.  _

Hux had just the time to turn his back on the wardrobe and accept the fact that he would never be able to escape, that Ren forced the office door. He swiftly pointed the weapon towards the entrance of the bedroom. He had no intention of being killed without fighting, no matter how powerful that aberration of a man was.

The sliding door was brutally pushed aside, and Ren appeared. 

"Trying to kill me again, General?"

The blaster almost slipped out of Hux's hand.

"I should ask you the same thing," he replied, barely registering the sound of his own words. " _ Supreme Leader _ ."

Something inside Hux's chest - something small and malevolent and as black as night - twisted painfully.

_ Did you really believe you could get rid of him for good,  _ he thought, and he felt like throwing up.

He tightly clutched the blaster, ignoring the nervous tremor that had taken hold of his right hand.

"Have you decided to skip the pleasantries, this time?"

Ren barked out an ugly laugh.

"You talk about pleasantries, yet you are pointing a blaster at me."

"As if you didn't just break into my bedroom."

Ren tilted his mask to the side.

“I wasn't sure you got my message, I needed to check.”

“You should know that I only receive by appointment. I am a busy man.” 

“I bet you are. Doing what, I wonder? Poison your colleagues?”

How harmless he must have looked, Hux's malevolent inner voice insinuated, in his dressing gown and with his fingers trembling as he gripped the gun. The part of him who refused to be considered a hunted animal angrily silenced it.

“I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about”, he answered, aware Ren would never believe him.

He briefly considered whether to try to grab the radio and report the break-in - but to whom?  _ Don't be ridiculous, you'd die before you could get in touch with Phasma  _ \- when Ren's words made his eyes go wide.

"What do you know about all this?" Ren asked. Hux opened his mouth to answer, but Ren immediately interjected him. "And don't try to lie to me. I don't know how much you remember about the six years we spent together on this ship, but I assure you that I had never held back when it came to extorting information in the past. I can be very persuasive."

"Are you kidding me?" Hux exclaimed, outraged. "Do you really want me to believe that you and your damn witchcraft aren't behind all this?!" He took a step in Ren's direction, the blaster still firmly clenched in his hands. "I remember all too well the six years I had to spend in your presence. Do you really think I’m  _ that _ stupid? After you tried to kill me as soon as you had the chance?!"

Blessed stars, not only was Ren perfectly aware of everything that was happening (because  _ of course _ he was), but he also wanted to try to confuse his judgment and deceive him? Did he really believe him so foolish? Hux couldn’t believe his ears. 

"Let me guess, are you and Palpatine trying to make up for the mistakes you've made in the past? Are you trying to take over my fleet before I become an obstacle? Before I sell you to the Resistance?!" He was probably yelling by now, but it was as if his voice no longer belonged to him. He could hear it echoing through the walls of the room, reverberating in the space between him and Ren. "Is this what you were trying to do, and something clearly didn't go the way you wanted since  _ you can't kill me _ ?!" The audacity of that man was absolutely unbelievable. Did he really believe he could play him like a fool? Hux had never felt so insulted in his whole life. "And take that stupid mask off and look me in the eye when I am talking to you!"

\-- 

Kylo was surprised to see how menacing Hux could appear even without a uniform, wearing only his dressing gown, and apparently helpless in the face of an enemy who could have crushed his windpipe with a snap of his fingers. Outrage permeated his every word, every little gesture he made as he adjusted his grip on his weapon, making sure Kylo was still within range. Kylo had never seen him reduced in such a state, and, despite himself, he realized he was inexplicably fascinated. Slowly, very slowly, he brought a hand up to undo his helmet - his eyes fixed on Hux, making sure he didn't interpret it as a defiant gesture and decided to shoot him straight in the chest, condemning him to wake up once again in the darkness of his small cabin. 

He dropped the helmet on the floor with a dull thud.

"You are rambling, Hux. How can you think I want to join Palpatine after everything he's done to me? After he deceived me, manipulated me, after he filled my head with lies and used me as a pawn to fight his stupid war?" He snarled. "This is why the Force sent me back, to prevent history from repeating itself. Palpatine is too ambitious a goal, I couldn't get to him even if I wanted to, but I can destroy his creature. Tell me, Hux, what will become of the First Order without its beloved General?

"His creature?  _ His creature _ ?!" Hux hissed, and, for a fleeting, frightening moment, Kylo believed he was preparing to jump on him and gauge his eyes out. "The First Order is  _ my  _ creature, and you took it from me as soon as you had the chance." He was now so close that Kylo had to struggle not to take a step back. "Do you think I have forgotten how you forced me to proclaim you Supreme Leader? Do you think I forgot Crait? You wanted power for yourself right from the first moment, and now you try to sell me the story of the poor boy manipulated by the treacherous Emperor?" Ren opened his mouth to interrupt him, but in vain. "I saw you fighting on Mustafar. I saw how you slaughtered the Azlamec cultists. You weren't a pawn, Ren, you knew exactly what you were doing!" He lowered his voice, and Kylo felt a shudder run down his back. "You knew perfectly well what you were doing to me after the defeat of Baatu. And I won't let you do it again."

Being accused of the crimes he had committed in his previous life, from Hux, of all people, was intolerable. It had been convenient for him to think that all the anger and violence he still held within body and mind were little more than annoying remnants of a past he could now bend to his will, siding against Palpatine and the First Order. The Colonel's words seemed to have awakened something inside him, something with a mellifluous and oh-so-alluring voice that whispered in Kylo's ear just how much fun it would be to do it all over again, this time with a different ending. 

Kylo forced himself to silence the voice. 

"You don't know what you are saying, Hux! You don't have-"

Hux pulled the trigger.

He had been so busy fighting back the violent instincts he had thought forgotten, that he made the fatal mistake of letting his guard down. He dodged the blow, but he was too slow. The blast hit him in the right shoulder, forcing him to stagger backward. For a moment, he could not help but stare at Hux, incredulous, as if he couldn't believe he had really pulled the trigger as the metallic taste of blood flooded his mouth and made his stomach turn. He barely had the presence of mind to summon the Force to throw the blaster away from Hux's hands before the pain exploded, blurring his vision and driving him to seek support against the nearest wall.

\-- 

Ren had slumped against the wall, leaving behind a streak of blood that cut the divider opposite to Hux's bed into two almost perfect halves. Hux felt nearly hypnotized by it.

_ I did it.  _ He thought, morbidly fascinated _. I managed to make him bleed. _

He had pulled the trigger without thinking about the consequences of his actions, only aware of having Ren in the line of fire. He hadn't thought he would actually be able to hurt him. It had never happened before.

He quickly crouched next to Ren, taking advantage of his state of shock to unhook the hilt of his lightsaber from his belt and throw it as far as possible. He would get the blaster later. If Ren wanted to play tricks on him, the blade hidden inside his sleeve would have been more than enough.

"Now, where were we?" he asked, quickly readjusting the dressing gown slipping down his shoulders. "Oh, right. I was kindly asking you to stop bullshitting me." He gently brought his hand to Ren's injured arm, as if to check the extent of the damage. "I would really like you, for once, to try to be honest with me, Ren."

He brought his face close to that of the other man, until Ren's rapid, labored breathing brushed his lips. From that close distance, he could observe, with the same detachment of a surgeon in an operating room, how pain transfigured him.  _ So you're human, after all.  _

He smiled softly. "I really think you owe me a little honesty", he said, sounding almost regretful. Then he brought the fingers of his right hand over the wound, and pressed hard.

Ren let out an agonized groan. 

"You talk about honesty?", he asked. Hux watched him closing his eyes for a moment before taking a deep breath. When he spoke again, it was with a sharp sense of urgency. "Three times I was forced to wake up on the same day, three times I tried to understand what was happening to me, but I couldn't- I couldn't, because of you. Every single day all the people around me performed the same actions and said the same things. All of them, but one. You." He tilted his head, and he opened his eyes again, meeting Hux's gaze. "You are the reason I was brought back here. I know it's you. It must be you, otherwise..." he rested his head against the wall, inhaling sharply. "Otherwise you wouldn't be here, now, remembering everything. Something has brought us to this place and time. Believe me when I say I have no idea why this is happening. But this is-"

Hux did not possess the power of the Force, but even without knowing how to read people's minds, he knew Ren was telling him the truth. The realization felt like receiving a bucket of freeing water in the face.

"Shit," he said. He did not exclaim it nor whisper it. He said it as if it were a fact, as if he had just commented on how dark that particular sector of the Galaxy was, or how many calories there were in each ration that had been given to the crew members that morning.

He jumped to his feet.

"Shit," he repeated. So that was it. Whatever power had brought him back to life had not done it to do him a favor, but further torment him. Hux was aware that he had done many things in his life that most people would have considered reprehensible. Possibly even cruel. But an eternal present in which every day he had to wake up and meet Kylo Ren for the first time? Hux was more than sure he didn't deserve that much hatred from the Galaxy.

He looked at the man who was slumped on the floor, suppressing the desire to kick him in the face. What good would it do? If Hux was the reason Ren had been brought back to life 

_ did he die as well, then? Was my sabotage successful, in the end? _

maybe the same principle could also be applied in reverse. Keeping Ren alive could have been Hux's only chance to break the circle and live to see another day. 

_ If it isn't already too late, considering how much he's bleeding.  _

The cold grip of anxiety, a prelude to an inevitable panic attack (a first-class one, one of those that when he was a child used to leave him blind and deaf and overwhelmed), began to crush his stomach. No escape route would allow Hux to survive at Ren's expense. Either they died together or they lived together, at least until Hux found a way to permanently get rid of the other man and free himself from this madness. He could already feel death approaching with every drop of blood that Ren was losing. 

Hux took a shaky breath, overcome by the fear of having to die again in a handful of minutes.

"I'm going to get some bacta gel and some gauze. I keep them in the refresher, so I will be absent for a maximum of thirty seconds. Try to stay awake until I'm back. If you feel like fainting, please do exactly what I did to your wound a moment ago."

The panic was now threatening to crush him. Hux turned his back on Ren, suppressing the voice in his head that yelled that  _ surely now that monster would do one of his magic tricks and throw him against the wall and Hux would puncture his lung again and honestly what else did he expect?,  _ he opened the bathroom door _ , maybe the first aid kit was never there and now Ren will bleed to death on his floor and insead of dying with him you will have to answer for his murder in front of Snoke or worse to the High Council just imagine the face that your father will make when he'll hear that for once you managed to kill someone in cold blood you killed Snoke's disciple,  _ he grabbed the metal box that contained the first aid kit _ , there is no chance they will not find you, you have to bring him to the infirmary immediately and you have to report to your superiors now that you are no longer the commander of the ship you know how protocol works you stupid fuck just let him die already and hope you can wake up tomorrow and start again _ , and he ran back to Ren.

\--

It was hard to believe that Hux was not going to take advantage of his sorry state to inflict a final blow. Kylo felt his anger blending together with the other man's rage, merging into a single flame that burned more intensely than the pain, which from his shoulder had now extended to his entire arm. He knew what would happen next. The distant sound of Hux's footsteps hurrying to retrieve his blaster, the click of the trigger, then darkness. And then another day. The knowledge that it was about to happen again was sickening, almost as much as the sense of helplessness that pervaded him. Perhaps he had already lost too much blood, perhaps he had lost enough to make him delirious, because he thought he heard Hux muttering something about bacta gauze and gel. Meaningless words - the man he knew would never feel pity, would never hesitate to shoot him a second time, this between the eyes, to make sure he could never get up again. Oh, well, until the beginning of the following cycle. In any case, it was an opportunity that Hux would hardly have missed.

Hux's bedroom had begun to swirl around Kylo as if he were in the eye of a surprisingly clean and tidy storm. 

He leaned his forehead against the wall, feeling its cold surface against his sweaty, burning skin. It would have been easy to let go, slip into oblivion and let the pain that was slowly devouring him disappear. He put a hand to his bleeding shoulder and squeezed it as hard as he could, biting his tongue to keep himself from screaming. If nothing else, the pang of pain that shot through his entire body was enough to bring back some clarity in his mind.

Kylo gasped when Hux reappeared in front of him. He hadn't heard him approaching, which was enough to give him a pretty accurate idea of how much his senses were clouded, replaced by the deafening pounding of his heart, making it almost impossible for him to hear his own thoughts. When she saw the Colonel move in his direction, he started to withdraw.

Hux knelt in front of him and quickly began fiddling with the bacta gel.

"Ren", he could hear him calling him. "Ren, you have to take off your tunic. It is necessary that I immediately apply the gel to your wound, but I cannot do it as long as it is covered by the fabric", he said, with the same detachment with which he would have communicated his subordinates the need to cover an extra shift. His presence in the Force vibrated with nervousness, but nothing, not in his gestures or words, was giving it away. 

Kylo had barely the strength to growl. 

"Don't touch me, or I swear that—"

Hux ignored the warning, grabbing his injured shoulder with force.

"Take it off, I said."

The fact that, apparently, Hux had no intention of immediately ending Kylo's sufferings did not mean that he would refrain himself from showing him who was in charge. 

In a way, Kylo was grateful. After three long days of incomprehensible events, Hux's shitty attitude was something that, for better or for worse, he could understand. 

Hux had always been motivated by his own self-interest. Kylo wouldn't have been surprised if he had decided to keep him alive for a few more minutes to use his momentary weakness to his advantage, in an attempt to extract answers from him. Answers that Kylo did not possess. 

Not wanting to waste his breath unnecessarily, Kylo nodded to show he understood. With only one functioning arm at his disposal, his movements were drastically reduced. Removing the tunic proved to be a titanic effort, even after he swallowed his pride, silenced the frustration that stirred in his chest, and accepted that Hux would help him. Despite everything, he had to stop often to catch his breath. Hux's cold fingers on his skin weren't definitely helping. 

Perhaps it would have been easier to get killed and start over the next day.

Hux snapped his fingers in front of his eyes.

"I'm about to apply bacta to the wound, it’s going to be easier if you behave."

The gel immediately adhered to the torn skin. Hux opened a second package and then a third.

"The shot went through your shoulder from side to side", Ren was informed in a detached voice. "I need to treat your back as well, or it won't stop bleeding."

  
  


\---

  
  


Saving Ren's life was not something he had put on his agenda that morning. The fact that it wasn't the first time it happened should perhaps have made him feel something, but the only thing Hux could feel was a desire to quickly stop the bleeding, clean the blood from the wall and try to restore some semblance of order. 

Priority: prevent Ren from bleeding to death in his bedroom. Second point: once Ren had recovered, put together the information he had collected with what Hux already knew (note to self: forcing Ren to speak without risking physical aggression). Third: prevent Snoke or the High Council from discovering that an officer and a knight of Ren knew things they absolutely were not supposed to know. 

Hux began to dress Ren's back with the remaining gel, glad, for once, that that awful man was complying.

His contentment lasted just a split second. He stopped with a bag of gel mid-air.

"Ren," he called his attention. "Have you already met Snoke?"

"No, I...", Ren answered, slowly turning his shoulder towards Hux to give him better access to the wound. "Not yet. I needed answers, so I immediately came here when I didn't see you in the hangar. I knew there was something wrong. We will have to come up with something. A mishap an- an accident. If we both stick to the same version of events, he will believe us."

Hux froze.

"Are you really telling me that you came looking for me, alone, without even thinking how to justify your absence?" The wound completely forgotten, he slipped on the floor just enough to look Ren straight in the eye. "Are you seriously thinking about bullshitting Palpatine? You, who famously possess the emotional restraint of a five-year-old child?!"

He clenched the fist of his left hand until his fingernails plunged into the palm, welcoming the pain. He took a deep breath. Then one. And then another.

"When we woke up here for the first time", he began, his voice trembling with anger. "Snoke dismissed me immediately. Now, I don't assume that you can remember exactly what kind of situation the Order was in six years ago, since you only became interested in what we did when you realized you could use us in your stupid family war." He raised a hand as a warning, to keep Ren from interrupting him. "So I'll take care to remind you. I am not yet part of the High Council of the First Order, and I command this ship only in my superiors' absence. This means", he raised his voice dangerously, "that Snoke has not yet begun to consider me fundamental to his plans and that, if the stars allow me, I can partially escape my duties." He hoped, in his heart, that his palm had already started to bleed. "The reason why I sent Phasma to greet you today is because I knew that my presence would not be essential and because I knew that she would do her job flawlessly and without asking questions. But you", he concluded, trying and failing not to yell, "as much as it pains me to admit it, you are  _ fundamental _ . And you ignored your duty towards Snoke to come find me, sneak into my rooms, and cause damage to public property. How can you really think you can justify it?! To  _ fucking Palpatine _ , of all people?!" He looked at Ren almost with sympathy.

"Promise me that, if we ever manage to come back to life again, you will try to use at least part of your brain?"

  
  


\--

  
  


Kylo waited for Hux to finish his tirade. He had no other choice, even if that last poisonous comment about his reasoning ability made him want to grab him by the neck and slam his head against the wall. He wondered if Hux realized how lucky he was that he barely had the strength to breathe, or if he was well aware of it, and that was precisely why he had decided to yell at him without restraint. 

He returned the Colone's gaze defiantly.

"Only if you stop getting in my way." 

The implication was clear. Kylo knew that suggesting an alliance after what had happened between them over the last few days (and what had happened over the previous six years) was like proposing an armistice amid a gunfight, but he also knew that Hux was as desperate as him, if not more. 

"If we were to go back to the start again - and something makes me think we will - we will have to make sure that the cycle does not repeat itself. No backstabbing, at least until we figure out why we're here and what the Force expects from us.

Hux scoffed. 

"Since I don't have much faith in the possibility of surviving until the evening, it would be better if we started drafting an action plan, then." 

He stood up, observing with visible satisfaction the work he had done on Kylo's shoulder. Kylo watched him trying to tighten the silk belt of his robe with blood-stained fingers. His discomfort was so palpable, and so  _ Hux _ , that for a brief moment Kylo felt inexplicably at home. 

Hux let his hands fall to his sides. "Get dressed and wait for me in my office. Not on the sofa, please - you would stain it. You can sit at my desk, but you must not, for any reason, touch my devices. I'm going to make myself presentable," he said, as the only explanation.

_ Presentable for whom _ , Kylo almost asked, but he quickly decided against it. He knew Hux well enough to know that the Colonel probably just needed to decompress. That dressing gown must have been expensive. 

"Very well," he agreed. 

Without giving him a chance to say anything else, Hux disappeared beyond the refresher door.

Kylo thanked the stars that Hux hadn't stayed to witness his pathetic attempts at getting back on his feet. Even with the pain gradually subsiding and transforming into a tolerable feeling of discomfort, convincing the rest of his body to cooperate was not easy. He supported himself with his blood-stained hand against the wall and, little by little, he managed to regain a vaguely upright position. Once he made sure that his knees could support his weight, the act of dressing was relatively simple, although he had to grit his teeth not to let out a moan when the fabric of the tunic rubbed against the still partially open wound. 

He retrieved the saber that Hux had thrown across the room. He had no intention of using it, unless Hux himself gave him a valid reason to do so, but still.

"You must be tired of being thrown away," he mumbled to the hilt before securing it to his belt, as he stepped towards Hux's desk. 

Hux's office was clean and tidy, just like its owner. Each device or decorative object had been positioned with nerve-wracking care and precision. As if in open defiance, Kylo slumped carelessly onto the desk chair. He immediately dispelled the temptation to rummage through furniture and drawers to search for more information about the other man. Hux would have noticed it in the blink of an eye, even if by a miracle he had managed not to stain the entire place with blood. Aware that commencing their alliance on the wrong foot could have meant starting that damned vicious circle all over again without a precise plan of action, he decided to behave and wait for the Colonel to deign him of his presence.

Hux emerged from the bedroom fully dressed, as if he were attending a solemn ceremony with the high ranks of the First Order instead facing a probable premature demise by Palpatine's hand. The annoyance he felt seeing him sitting at his desk in his office, which Kylo imagined for someone like him was the closest thing to a personal sanctuary, was unmistakable. He had spent too much time clashing with him not to learn to recognize all those small signals that leaked from his facade of professionalism and impeccable composure. If nothing else, the thought that Hux seemed to hate the idea of that forced truce as much as he did made him feel a bit better.

"So, if I remember correctly, before forcing the door to my room and thus putting me in the position to shoot you, you said that - I quote - we need to talk," Hux said. "I listen."

"As I told you, I needed answers," Kylo began, keeping his gaze fixed on the Colonel, so that he could better observe his reactions. "I woke up thrice in the same place on the day of my arrival on this ship. All the people I've met so far have behaved exactly the same way every single time - no recollection that we had already met before, no noticeable changes in their response. You are the only exception. It was only natural to think that this...thing, whatever it is, had something to do with you. The fact that the Force has decided to involve you is…"  _ irritating, absurd, insignificant,  _ "-interesting. Especially since when I tried to kill you, thinking it was the easiest way to deal with the situation, I was immediately punished. "

He paused briefly. It was then that a sudden thought crossed his mind

"Did you die immediately after poisoning me?"

The imperceptible grimace on Hux's face made him realize that the answer would be affirmative, even before the Colonel opened his mouth.

"I'm pretty sure we ended up into some wormhole that deformed the structure of space-time," Hux replied. "We probably found ourselves at the center of a massive explosion that caused a laceration within the matter. I was actually researching the topic, before you interrupted me as gracefully as you always do." He looked at the office door. "I can concede that the circumstances we currently find ourselves in are particularly unusual. But to assert that all of this is a project of the Force seems, frankly, surreal to me." He gave Ren a joyless smile. "After all, if the Force had wanted you to understand that you deserve to be punished for your actions, it should have done it long ago. In any case," he continued, "yes, I believe I died thirty seconds after seeing you fall to the ground. One minute, exaggerating. Is that what happened to you as well, after you took advantage of my hospitality?"

"I don't expect you to understand," Kylo snapped, not bothering to smile back. "Anyway, yes, I think the same thing happened to me. You had just stopped breathing when I started suffocating. It didn't last long, however, and the rest...well, we both know what happened after."

Hux sighed. "And about that... How did it happen the first time? Before we... before we came back here. I'm pretty sure you were still alive when-" he paused, looking everywhere but at Kylo. "-when I was permanently relieved of my duties. "

There it was, the question Kylo hoped Hux would never ask. There was no point in lying, but the truth - the whole truth - was not meant to be shared with a man who did not believe in anything he could not understand. 

"It happened on Exegol. Palpatine set a trap for us - me and the girl, I mean - but it was her that he really wanted. And once he believed he had her, he didn't hesitate to get rid of me."

To nobody's surprise, Hux did not even try to hide his delight. 

"Let's see if I understand correctly," he said, just to rub it in like the little sniveling shit that he was. "Did Palpatine...find you worthless? Is that what you're telling me? Years of apprenticeship, first with Skywalker and then directly with him, months of imperialist war in which you did exactly what he wanted, and in the end...he didn't need you? Did he get you out of the way without even saying thank you?" He laughed softly, elegantly covering his mouth with the back of his hand. "Good heavens, Ren. If it weren't exactly what you deserved, I might even feel sorry for you.

Kylo jumped to his feet, and the ceiling lights flickered.

"I see you find it funny," he said, planting both hands on the desk and leaning forward towards Hux. "Yet I do not seem to be the only one to have been betrayed and thrown aside without any regard for almost thirty years of service. Am I right,  _ Colonel _ ?" 

"My execution was a risk I had already anticipated," Hux replied, slowly advancing towards him. He took a quick look at the datapad on the desk, dangerously close to Kylo's hands, and he pushed it away from him. "I have been carrying out an espionage operation, alone, for months. On the contrary, I am rather amazed that I could bring it almost to an end, but I evidently overestimated you." They were now face to face. "And about Pryde, whom you appointed with the sole purpose of humiliating me, I have only one remorse. But this time I won't make the same mistake." He studied Kylo's face for an instant, and then. "What happened between my death and yours? What happened to Palpatine's fleet?"

The real question was implied, but Kylo understood nevertheless. 

_ What happened to my men, Ren? _

If he hadn't hated him so much, Kylo might have felt respect for the Colonel. Despite the implicit threat, which alone would have been enough to make stronger and more powerful men shiver and bow their heads, Hux showed no fear. He never did, neither before nor after Kylo's ascension to the throne of Supreme Leader. And he certainly wasn't showing fear now that their alliance threatened to collapse in the bud.

Kylo let him come closer without looking away. At that point, it was impossible to tell which one was invading the other's personal space. 

"Hard to think there had been survivors, if that's what you're interested to know. Palpatine's fleet went down with him. If anyone survived, I think the Resistance finished the job."

\--

Hux took a deep breath. If Ren had told the truth - and he had no reason to doubt his words - it meant he had succeeded. The information he passed on to the Resistance, and the sacrifice he made to let Dameron and the stormtrooper escape, hadn't been for nothing. The feeling was unfamiliar. He couldn't call it joy - not the vengeful joy with which he had celebrated his father's death, anyway - nor satisfaction. It was an unexpected calm, almost a confirmation of what he had always felt deep inside: he truly was the best military strategist the Galaxy had ever known.

He thought of his men, transferred with him from the Finalizer to the Steadfast. He thought of those who had remained faithful to him and who had continued to respect his authority even after the defeat of Baatu and the appointment of Pryde as his superior. It was almost with a shock that he realized that the only regret he felt was not saving them.

_ This time I won't make the same mistakes. _

If he truly had been given a second chance, Hux knew what he had to do: annihilate Palpatine before he could create his new fleet (and that meant eliminating any remaining imperial officers and anyone longing for the Empire and willing to invest men and money in its reconstruction), and save his men. He had less than six years to do that.

There was not a second to lose.

He didn't take his eyes off Ren, no matter how much hatred he read in the other man's eyes and what the other was able to read in his. The knowledge that he had not made a mistake, and that he had taken the right decision in passing information to the Resistance, made him feel as resolute as when he had given the order to fire Starkiller Base. He had almost forgotten what it meant to hold power, and the infinite universe of possibilities that this entailed.

"So it can be destroyed," he said, feeling the adrenaline rush down his spine. "I'll destroy it again, then." He leaned towards Ren so that he could hear him lowering his voice. "I did it once, and I will do it as many times as necessary. This time I won't be unprepared." He looked at Ren as if to challenge him to come between him and his prey. "And I won't be forced to move in the shadows, alone, like the last time."

"We seem to have a common goal, then," Ren assured him, staring back at him with something that almost looked like amusement in his gaze. "First," he continued, straightening his back and pulling away from the desk. "We'll need to keep the Supreme Leader - or, well, Palpatine - in the dark for as long as possible. We'll need to hide our own thoughts from his gaze and lie to his face, if necessary." He gave Hux a skeptical look. "Do you think you can manage?"

Hux arched an eyebrow.

"Ren, I've passed information to the Resistance behind your back for months. Your lack of trust hurts me."

His mind had already set to work. He did not doubt that Ren would be a questionable ally to work with, nor that dismantling Palpatine's plans one by one would not be easy. Knowing the future events was undoubtedly a point in their favor and - assuming that their truce would block the crackdown in which they were both trapped - and, in the worst-case scenario, they had at least six years to consolidate a robust network of alliances and eliminate those who could have hindered them.

"Let's consider our options," he said, starting to walk back and forth around the office, his arms clasped tightly behind his back. "At the moment, we need to evaluate how to deal with the most immediate scenario, namely you having deserted your first meeting with Snoke. I have three possible lines of action in mind that we could follow, but feel free to propose a fourth, if you feel mine are not up to par." He cleared his throat, feeling part of a ridiculously restricted war council. "Case A: You immediately head to your appointment with Snoke, claiming that you have received incorrect information and believed my presence was necessary. Not seeing me coming, and having received directions from Phasma regarding my accommodation, you came looking for me. Little chance of success, but it doesn't require an elaborate lie. There is also the chance that Phasma will get involved, which I personally would like to avoid." He numbered on his fingers. "Case B: You go to Snoke, saying that the Force sent you a vision of me as your enemy. It shouldn't be hard: just let resurface a random memory from our past - or directly the one in which I poisoned you, the choice is yours - and sell it to Snoke as a vision. You will apologize for following your instincts and tell him that you sensed hatred and resentment coming from my person. I doubt Snoke would be surprised. Obviously, this would put me in a bad position from day one ", he sighed. "But it is a sacrifice that I would be willing to make." He nervously fiddled with a heavy flimsiweight placed on the bookcase. "Case C. You said it was the girl he wanted, didn't you?" He turned to Ren, his lips tightened in a thin line. "We are going to get her. Now."

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggering contents (spoiler alert): blaster wounds, blood, physical aggression, manipulative behavior, panic attacks, canon references to self-harm (namely: Hux digging his nails into his hand).


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, lovely readers, for your enthusiasm; it truly means the world to us.   
> Here's some protective big brother Kylo and some unpleasant memories for our poor Hux. 
> 
> Please refer to the notes at the end of the chapter for an exhaustive list of potentially triggering contents.

_   
_ _ "We are going to get her. Now." _

Hux's last words made Kylo's blood run cold.

"What do you mean, to get her?" he asked, despite knowing all too well what Hux had meant.

"If the girl is truly what Palpatine wants, she could come in handy, don't you think?" the other replied, tapping his fingers on the smooth surface of the bookcase. "What was he going to do with her? Kill her? Let her take your place?"

Something told Kylo that he would do much better not to tell the whole truth. 

"He saw her power. He wanted it for himself."

"Hm," Hux mumbled, pensive. "We could find the girl and see how it plays out. Or kill her, even. But what advantage could it bring us right now? Even assuming we could find her before Palpatine realizes that something is wrong, what hope would we have of surviving once we have killed her?"

Hux definitely didn't need to know that, if he was seriously going to get anywhere near Rey and hurt her, he would find himself floating in deep space in the span of fifteen seconds.

However.

What if Hux wasn’t the only one trapped in that hellish loop with him? What if Rey went back in time as well, and remembered?

She had been with him right until he let the Force dissolve his body and take him away. The sensation of Rey's cold limbs in his arms was as vivid as if it had just happened, as was the expression of pure joy that had appeared on her face the moment she opened her eyes and saw him, alive, in front of her. There had been the touch of her lips against his, and then darkness, and then- and then  _ that _ , whatever it was.

Part of Kylo wanted to protect Rey and leave her out of that absurd story. Another, the part of him that was tired of stumbling in the dark, whispered in his ear that maybe Rey could be the answer to all of his questions. She had already been in the past, in a sense. And she was the only person who, for a brief moment, had wanted to believe there was something in him that went beyond what Snoke and Luke had always led him to believe.

He had to make sure she was ok. He owed it to her, after all the things that had happened.

Hux would never understand, but there was no need for him to understand. There was no need for him to know what his real motivations were.

_ And to say that it was you who demanded to play fair. _

Whatever. The inscrutable plan of the Force came before whatever a man like Hux considered loyalty.

"Going to Jakku right away... it might work," he said. "We eliminate the girl; Palpatine is forced to retrace his steps and work out a new strategy, giving us enough time to prepare for the showdown on Exegol. Should he try to stop us for some reason, I will simply tell him that I sensed the presence of someone powerful in the Force. At that point, he will be happy to let us go. Enthusiastic, I dare say, at the prospect that I will be able to bring her to him much sooner than he predicted. When he realizes we have different intentions, it will already be too late. "

For a moment, he was almost sure that Hux was going to say no. The intensity of the Colonel’s thoughts was unsettling. There was something, in that situation, that clearly didn't convince him. Something that Hux quickly hid behind a thick coat of detachment.

"Very well," he replied when Kylo had already begun to lose hope. "In the absence of our personal means of transportation, I believe that a Xi-class light shuttle will be the best option. I will ask to make us find one ready in sector 9-D of the hangar in half an hour. This should give us enough time to prepare the necessary." He straightened his back. "You are dismissed."

As expected, Hux had already decided to take on all organizational responsibilities. Kylo was grateful; it was the kind of job he preferred to leave to his officers while he personally took care of more pressing matters. But that " _ you are dismissed _ ," pronounced in the tone of someone speaking to a subordinate barely worthy of his consideration, was a painful stab to his ego.

"Very well. Sector 9-D in half an hour. Just one piece of advice - make sure you remember who you are dealing with", he hissed, rising from his chair to retrieve the helmet he had dropped on the floor. 

He bumped his shoulder against Hux's as he passed close to him and left the room, pushing aside the torn door with a brusque wave of his hand. 

As soon as he was outside, he ran into a rather agitated-looking stormtrooper, probably alerted by the commotion he had heard coming from the Colonel's quarters. Now that he thought about it, Kylo was amazed that someone hadn't arrived earlier. With a hint of amusement, he thought about Hux and the fact that perhaps his rigid Stormtrooper training methods were not as infallible as he liked to believe. A snap of his fingers was enough to erase all traces of worry from the soldier's mind and replace them with the irrepressible instinct to obey his orders.

"Nothing to see here, go back to your post," he told him. Then, glancing briefly at the shattered door behind him, he added, "and call someone to have that thing fixed."

Knowing that Hux wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to give him a long and boring lecture if he showed up two seconds late, he arrived at the meeting place dead on time. Actually, a few minutes early. Half an hour had been more than enough to allow him to gather what little he thought he would need for the trip.

From the Galaxy sector in which they were located, it would take them about twenty hours to reach the planet. Twenty hours that Kylo had to spend sharing the few meters available inside the shuttle with the last person in the entire Universe he would have wanted to deal with.

_ Speak of the devil. _

Deliberately refusing to give Kylo the satisfaction of being surprised or pleased by his punctuality, Hux proceeded in the direction of the shuttle, lowering the access ladder and elegantly climbing the step without sparing him a second glance. 

Kylo, in turn, refused to feel disappointed by the Colonel’s pettiness. He followed Hux inside the shuttle, which turned out to be...very small. Very, very small.    
It was to be expected, he knew that the First Order could not afford to waste a larger ship on such a short mission, but the thought of spending even a handful of hours trapped inside with Hux was suffocating.

_ You're doing it for Rey _ , he reminded himself.  _ Control yourself. You’re above all this.  _

He left his baggage in the  hold \- a meager travel backpack containing food, a change of clothes, and little else - and he joined Hux in the narrow cockpit. From behind the transparisteel screen, he watched the hangar doors open onto the deep space in front of him, and he silently begged the Force to make his job as smooth as possible - if that was really what it wanted from him. The task ahead of him would be challenging enough even without being forced to endure Hux’s constant complaints.

Truth to be told, he was perplexed that Hux (who, as a rule, hated any kind of hazardous move), had approved such a direct line of action. Maybe he shouldn’t have been. After all, if being catapulted six years back in time without any apparent explanation was enough to make him lose what little self-control he had left in him, he could hardly imagine what that might have meant for Hux's orderly mind .

"Are we ready to go?", he asked.

"Obviously," Hux replied, laconically.

Kylo arched an eyebrow as Hux moved past him and sat down at the pilot seat without even acknowledging him.    
Foolishly, Kylo had thought that the responsibility of flying them safely to Jakku would fall on him, as the most experienced pilot, but it was clear that the Colonel intended to consider himself the only commander of the operation. Old habits die hard.

The shuttle lifted off the ground in one smooth motion. Hux waited until they were exactly parallel to the entrance of the hangar, and, with one last look at the walls of the Finalizer closing in around them, he abandoned the gravitational field of the Star Destroyer.

"So," he said, setting the autopilot and not very stealthily checking that the coordinates he entered were correct. "Any idea how to find the girl? How old will she be, by the way? Ten, eleven?"

Kylo dropped into the co-pilot's chair to Hux's right with a sigh. 

"If what Palpatine told me about her is true, her power is great. Impossible not to perceive it once we land. She won't be hard to find." He deliberately omitted the part in which he had been able to test Rey's power over and over again, both in-person and telepathically, and not necessarily in a fight. "I never knew how old she was exactly, but yeah, I guess she was still a little girl at this point in time."

He looked over at Hux, searching for an even the most imperceptible sign of humanity on his face. He found none.  _ How surprising. _

"You'll have to cover my back while I try to locate her”, he added. “If I remember correctly, Jakku was never a big problem during the early stages of war, but that doesn't mean its inhabitants won’t get any strange ideas seeing two First Order commanders arrive without a convoy."

Hux let out a sound halfway between a snort and a sigh.

"I understood that we would be allies in this mission," he lazily tilted his head to look at him. "How could I trust you if you withhold important information from me?", he tapped the fingers of his right hand, the one closest to Kylo, on the armrest. "Do you really want me to believe that everything you know about the girl comes from Palpatine? After you've been obsessed with her for more than a year? Ren," he fully turned towards him, "you may have the Force, but you're a terrible liar. And, as much as you don't like it, I think I know you well enough to know when you're not telling me the truth. "

Hux had a point. Kylo had rarely needed to mislead anyone. Bending people to his will through the use of the Force had always felt more natural than fabricating a lie. Ben Solo may have needed to lie to save his life, but Kylo Ren? Who, after getting rid of his old master, had ruled unchallenged by anyone - anyone but one man? 

Hux had always been the one exception. Even now, he was acting arrogant, knowing that Kylo needed his help. He tried to meet his gaze, but Hux’s eyes had already moved elsewhere, fixing himself on an indefinite point in the middle of the ocean of stars that surrounded them.

"Sorry for not trusting your backstabbing nature and disclosing  _ only _ the strictly necessary," he retorted. "As if you would ever understand. You never tried before; why start now? What is it, Hux?", he pressed, hasty to change the subject. "Have you finally changed your mind? Have you started to believe in something that goes beyond your little Universe made of logic and common sense? Surely it can't be easy to watch your all certainties collapse."

\--   
  


Hux sighed. He had no time or patience for whining. He never had a younger brother, much less children, and although he had always genuinely cared for the kids that the First Order had collected across the Galaxy over the years, he had no interest in taking care of someone else’s emotional integrity - and certainly not Ren's. In all honesty,  even _ if  _ he had been interested, he would not have known where to start . As a child, he had learned to tiptoe around people so as not to anger them, but using softness to make them feel comfortable was something he had never learned how to do. Besides, it was not something that had ever been required of him. He had grown up in the belief that every adult man wanted nothing more than to abuse him physically and psychologically, and the moment Ren had forced him to recognize him as Supreme Leader, he understood that he had been right. Therefore, he had no idea what to do with a defensive Ren. 

"Don't be ridiculous," he replied, suddenly feeling the weariness of the previous few days -  _ of the last year and a half -  _ swooping down on him. "My certainties are precisely where I left them. I just find it illogical that, after obsessively looking for the girl for months and meeting her in person more than once, you tell me that everything you know about her comes from Palpatine." He tilted his face towards Ren. "I may not be gifted with magical powers like you are, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t sense something on my own. And, right now, I'm sensing that you're not going to tell me the whole truth about what happened on Exegol, because protecting your secrets is more important to you than finding a way to free us from this trap which is forcing us to work together." 

The obsession the other man had for the girl had always been incomprehensible for him. One of the many mysteries of those who harbored blind faith in the Force, probably. Or more likely, the umpteenth demonstration of Ren's inability to deal with his own eternal adolescence.    
However, if he was willing to kill her, he might not have been as prey to his own feelings as Hux imagined. After all, Ren was not Vader, and he never would be.

He rotated the seat towards the other man, gripping the armrests firmly. "Just so you know, I had never been interested in what was going through your head before because it never concerned my own survival - or, at least, not directly. I would have obviously liked to know what you were going to do with my men and with the project I worked on all my life, from time to time, but you had exonerated me from all my duties and forced me to shut up every time I opened my mouth." His lips stirred into a joyless smile. "But before? What would you have wanted me to do? For me to come looking for you every time you destroyed my equipment and terrified my underlings, and offered you a shoulder to cry on? I don't remember a single time when you spontaneously sought me out; why should I have done it first?"

"And why should I have come looking for you?" Ren answered, offering Hux his best imitation of a bored expression. "The First Order is not the place to let personal feelings and interests take over - wasn’t it you who said that, when you were yet again complaining about my conduct in front of the Supreme Leader? I respected your will as co-commander and member of the Order. I'm afraid no mutual help would have been enough to change things. As for the girl…”, he tore his gaze away in a way that Hux didn’t like. "Nothing that happened on Exegol will matter if we can get over with it now, before it's too late."

"Of course it has to be my fault," Hux replied, silently cursing himself for even trying to have a conversation with Ren. "It was certainly not you who, from day one, made it clear that the common goal of the Order was less important than your personal interests." He crossed his legs and rested his hands in his lap, fingers intertwined - the portrait of composure; the quintessence of self-control that would have deceived anyone. "Anyway, keep your secrets. I have bigger problems than fighting a lost cause, at the moment."

He wondered how he could tolerate another nineteen hours of flight. The shuttle was not spacious enough for him to disappear from Ren's sight - unless he locked himself in the bathroom or in the engine compartment, but there was a line. Going to sleep, of course, was out of the question. He would not have done it in any case, let alone with Ren just half a meter away. The only option left was to turn the holopad on and busy himself with work.

_ The holopad. _

Hux buried his face in his hands, unable to stifle a frustrated moan.

He had forgotten it on his desk.

_ Not a good start _ , he thought, shaking his head. 

Completely (and, in all likelihood, deliberately) oblivious to his discomfort, Ren chose that very moment to resume the conversation, despite Hux having been quite clear that he had no intention of spending the rest of the journey arguing with him.    


"When Snoke told me I was expected to serve alongside First Order officers, I thought he had gone mad. I tried to tell him that a Force warrior is not made for military life, but he persisted until he convinced me it was an essential part of my training," he said, his voice distant. Hux wondered if he was really talking to him. Hopefully not. "And of all the ships he could have chosen, many of which were commanded by old Empire nostalgics who would have been thrilled to welcome Vader's successor on board, he chose the Finalizer. I am beginning to think that he wanted to pit us against each other from day one.” Oh, yes. He was definitely talking to him. Hux lifted his head, cautiously observing the other man. He had a feeling he knew where that conversation was going, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for it. “He knew that I would find your obsession with rules and discipline unbearable, and that you would not be able to appreciate my potential. Do you ever think he might have been afraid of us? After all, as long as we had been busy with each other, we wouldn't have had time to reflect on his own personal interests. And we didn’t. In a way, he got what he wanted. "

Whatever happened on Exegol must have touched Ren deeply. Hux had no other way of explaining what he just heard. The words Ren had used had been measured and cautious, but he had no reason to doubt their earnestness - not when he had been the first to ask himself the same questions for nearly a year.

If Hux's remorses could be counted on the fingers of one hand, his regrets were even fewer. But in the endless hours of anguish spent sitting on the ground waiting for a sign from his contact in the Resistance, his back propped against the wall and a full ashtray next to his feet, Hux had had plenty of time to deal with his past.

Ren had always been a problem. His utter disregard for both order and discipline, the way he put his beliefs above all rules, the ease with which he managed to get everything he wanted when Hux had had to fight for twenty years to be recognized as deserving of the place he occupied. He knew that the old imperial hierarchs, friends of his father, had attributed his rise to the most abject things, instead of his talent. Of the many things they believed him guilty of, murder was the only one that Hux would never contest. But Ren was above it all - Ren had never had to prove to anyone that he deserved to command the Finalizer before, and the entire fleet after.

Hux had misplayed his cards. He had decided to make an enemy out of him instead of using his popularity and power for his own ascent. A mistake he had never made before meeting Ren - but, after all, no one had ever been able to turn his life upside down as he did.

The person who was now in front of him, and whose thoughts were so similar to his own, was uncharted territory, and Hux doubted he had the means to survive it for long. Something inside him seemed to want to struggle to escape - or attack.

"It might be as you say," he replied cautiously, "but even if it was Snoke's plan from the start, our respective natures and ideological differences did most of the job. There was, I must admit, a moment", he studied Ren’s face, hoping to find some kind of confirmation "in which I believed we could put our differences aside. It was the last time we went planetside together. Seeing how things turned out a few months later, I realize I was wrong."

He turned the seat towards the control panel. The Universe was exceptionally dark in that sector of the Galaxy. He fixed his gaze on two small luminous bodies that rotated, one around the other without ever intersecting their respective trajectories, silhouetted against the black of space.

"In any case, although we cannot effectively change our past, our current circumstances are at least offering us a chance not to make the same mistakes." He barely smiled. "Although we will probably make some worse ones, judging by how the first two days went."

"Probably, yes. But if nothing else, it looks like this time we can try and try again until we hit the right path. For better or for worse, even if at the moment it looks more like a curse than a gift."

\--

  
  
  


Kylo leaned back against the headrest, not even bothering to hold back a long sigh. For most of his life he had lived without regrets, and now he was struggling to bear their weight. He should have expected it. What an idiot he had been, to think that his sacrifice would have been enough to wash away all the traces of the man he had been. The man he perhaps still was, as his uncontrollable fits of anger had demonstrated.

Hux's voice forced him to turn away from his own thoughts.

"Honestly, after what you have put me through, I would not hesitate to consider every new opportunity that is offered to me as a gift."

A new feeling, guilt. A Knight of Ren did not know what to do with it; he would have fallen into the abyss of madness if he began to feel something for every life he tore away, every planet he devastated, every trail of blood he left behind. But when the frustration around Hux seemed to wane and be replaced by what could only be called  _ wistfulness _ , Kylo distinctly felt something clenching around the pit of his stomach. It made him sick, made him wonder why he hadn't experienced that when he set Skywalker’s Jedi Temple on fire, or when he took part in the terrifying inauguration ceremony of Starkiller Base, or when he planted the blade in the chest of his own father and watched him fall into the void.    
He regretted having started that conversation, because he knew whatever he might say would only confirm what Hux thought of him. What did he want to hear? That there had been a time when, despite their differences, he had hoped that they would be able to stand together? That, after Snoke's death, power had gone to his head? Hux would never believe him. 

"I don't think this conversation is doing you any good," Hux added, before Kylo could break the silence and say something he would go on to regret. "It would be better if you rest. I will need you in strength once we get to Jakku. "

Wise advice. 

He closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind of unhappy thoughts. He anchored his conscience to the noise of the shuttle's engine, which filled the cockpit with a constant and regular hum.

He let the sound lull him, spreading the vibration to the muscles of his body, from his head down to his toes.

He would not have been able to say when or how, but, at a certain point, the tiredness of the last few days got the better of him and he finally managed to slip into a kind of vaguely pleasant doze.

It was Hux's voice that brought him back to the world of the living.

"Ren?", he heard him calling. "I think it’s time for you to put your magical powers to work and find the girl."

Kylo opened one eye, finding himself staring at the impassive face of the Colonel. Needless to say, being treated as some kind of living compass was the last thing he wanted from that mission, and yet the fact that Hux hadn't attempted to assassinate him in his sleep - keyword  _ attempted _ \- could only be considered an improvement.

"I see you've got yourself fixed up," he muttered, hinting at how the Colonel had obviously taken the time to comb his hair and tidy up his uniform, as if he was about to attend a formal event for the Order's senior officers.

Without waiting for an answer, he got up from his post and turned his gaze to the surface of the planet they were gradually approaching. It took him only a few moments before he began to feel something, an awareness still vague and remote, yet impossible to ignore. The same one he felt in the presence of Snoke, albeit on a smaller scale, which left him in no doubt about the identity of the person to whom it was linked.

\--

Hux didn't even need to check his reflection on the shiny durasteel wall in front of him to know he was blushing. He wrinkled his nose, outraged by Ren’s observation.

"Ridiculous," he muttered under his breath, suddenly showing great interest in the stitching pattern on his left glove.

_ I see you’ve got yourself fixed up _ , Ren had said, as if there was something wrong with wanting to show the best of one’s physical and mental capabilities. Evidently, the Knight of Ren did not realize how important it was to show, both in words and deeds, one’s moral and cultural superiority - especially how crucial it was for someone that held a position as high as his. 

An orderly and civil aspect was a fundamental business card, exactly like an excellent knowledge of the Common Language and of the Intergalactic Etiquette would be. But what could a person like Kylo Ren, who probably slept in the same tattered and dirty clothes in which he spent the rest of the day, know about it?

"There is a military outpost on the North-Western hemisphere of the planet, isn't it?" Ren then asked, glancing at Hux over his shoulder. "I can't pinpoint the exact spot, not yet, but I don't think the girl survived for years wandering aimlessly in the desert. She must have settled in one of the few places with a semblance of civilization. "

"A… a military outpost?" Hux faltered, the unsolicited observation on his supposed vanity suddenly forgotten.

After all, it was the obvious solution. Not that Hux hadn't already thought about it - if only because, every time Jakku was mentioned, a series of images that he hoped had been forever buried in the past would come up again flashing before his eyes.

Signal towers, and a hexagonal-shaped structure, an underground bunker that smelled of dust, and the feeling of sand on his lips, two tiny, freckled, sunburnt hands holding a gun too big for them, and a voice he knew all too well shouting orders, another - unknown - saying to  _ hurry, that there was no more time left,  _ the sky being covered by fire and an imperial ship too far away that he would never be able to reach, because the sand was hot on his feet and fire had started raining from the sky-

"Of course," he replied, clearing his throat. "The imperial base. I imagine it has been converted into housing for civilians. "

He was amazed, honestly, that there was still something left standing.

That day fire had rained down from the sky.

\--

Suddenly, it was as if the cockpit were engulfed by a tornado, a whirlwind of blurred yet powerful sensations that threatened to crush him to the ground. Taken aback, Kylo almost found it hard to breathe. He hadn't even considered that that particular place held any meaning to Hux. He had never bothered to delve deeply into the Colonel's past - not even in the beginning, when he had insinuated himself in his mind and in that of his closest collaborators, desperate for something that could help him reassert his superiority over the insufferable officer Snoke had wanted to partner him up with at all costs.

He knew Hux had been young, disturbingly young when he started his military career, and that had always been enough for him to know. 

He had never wasted much time wondering what the consequences might have been, if there really had been any, of being thrown into a world of blood, fire, and violence when he was still little more than a child. 

He turned to face Hux, who kept his gaze fixed on the surface of the planet on the other side of the transparisteel, as if he recognized something in it beyond the immense expanses of rock and sand. Something that was, in all likelihood, the ghost of whatever happened on Jakku years and years before.

"Hux..." he began, not knowing exactly what he wanted, or what he should say to him.  _ What’s happening? Are you all right? _ No. Kylo wasn’t that naive. He would have been foolish to believe that the panic that had temporarily assailed Hux along with his memories would prevent him from shielding himself behind a caustic remark. Words that would have done nothing but draw a new crack in the foundations of their truce, already quite precarious in itself. 

The only thing he could do was to change subject.

"Do you remember the exact coordinates? I think this is the place we are looking for. "

Hux took a deep breath.

"Obviously."

\--

He entered the coordinates of the imperial outpost, as his memory had suggested them. He didn't hesitate. It had been twenty-three years -  _ thirty _ , in truth - since the battle of Jakku, and Hux still remembered everything as if it had happened no more than a few weeks earlier.

He realized that probably Ren had not been not born yet at the time, or at the very least he had been barely an infant.

He never really thought about that. 

_ I learned to hold a rifle before you were even born _ , he thought, almost astonished by the ferocity with which the thought had surfaced his mind.

The shuttle entered the planet's atmosphere. Hux buckled his seat belt around his waist, and another memory assailed him: a shuttle of similar size, a planet populated by enormous bluish felines, the crash site in flames around him, and Ren holding up what remained of the shuttle with the power of his own thoughts alone.

_ "Did you... did you save me?" _

_ "Not intentionally. I saved myself. You were just nearby. " _

He never believed that.

Resentment turned into queasiness, and then into something that clawed at his chest with sharp claws.

"Ren...", he began, not knowing what to say. _ Thanks for not letting me burn? I owed you a life debt for years, and once I finally repaid it I believed that things would finally get better, but then everything went to hell, and I still can't understand where I went wrong? Over the last year, I have been constantly thinking about the fact that, if the opportunity arose, you would not have saved my life anymore? _

"...the outpost is a labyrinth. The underground bunkers extend for miles. I would like to be able to optimize our movements and not waste precious time. I hope you are of the same opinion.”

\--

  
  


Was it nostalgia that hovered around the Colonel? Difficult to say. Probably Hux had only clung to the first vaguely pleasant memory that the sight of Jakku had awakened, in an attempt to fight whatever had caused a reaction as unexpected as it was visceral. Kylo couldn't help but wonder what kind of memory could ever make Hux feel like that. The temptation of intruding his mind and finding out what was going on was almost making him uncomfortable. He had never thought of Hux as someone particularly nostalgic. He was the kind of person who lived without regrets.

The shuttle swayed, abruptly interrupting the course of his thoughts. Kylo fell backwards on the seat before his curiosity could get the better of what little common sense he had left. 

He hastened to imitate Hux, fastening his seat belt in turn.

"The less time we waste wandering aimlessly, the better. I don't know how long Palpatine will remain in the dark about our plans, and, to be honest, don't even know if we will be given enough time to get what we need before the cycle starts all over again. Assuming that what we are about to do is the first step towards solving this nightmare."

"I'd say we'll find out soon," Hux replied, taking over from autopilot and starting landing maneuvers.

Beyond the atmosphere, Jakku appeared as a uniform expanse of sand, interrupted here and there by the irregular shape of a mountain range. The imperial outpost (or what remained of it) stood at the foot of one of them, protected to the North-West by a steep rock wall on which, once upon a time, skilfully camouflaged signaling radars towered so as to merge with part of the landscape. They had been the first thing the New Republic had targeted during the assault.

From a distance, Kylo could already glimpse the silhouettes of more recent buildings made of junk and debris, distributed around the perimeter of the base in correspondence, he guessed, with the bunkers that developed underground.

"There should be a runway," he heard Hux mumbling to himself. "I remember that we used it to load and unload-" he swore under his breath, unable to see it. "Fucking sand. It covered everything."

His fingers moved quickly over the shuttle's controls. He bit his lower lip, took a deep breath, and began to recite the information the landing protocol required.

"Latitude -28.70207, longitude 19.75187. Daytime outdoor temperature 47 degrees maximum, 39 degrees minimum. Absence of precipitation. Sandstorm expected in about five hours and forty minutes." He cracked his neck with an almost imperceptible movement. "Expected landing in three minutes and twenty-six seconds. All passengers not involved in descent maneuvers must be at their seats with their seat belts fastened."

Kylo stared at him, speechless. It had been too long since the last time he had had the opportunity to see Hux in his natural environment, and he had forgotten how the man adored everything that had to do with protocol, rules of conduct and safety measures.    
A part of him couldn't help but admire the dedication, despite finding it completely unnecessary and, honestly, rather maniacal.    
The landing proved turbulent enough for Kylo to bask in the knowledge that, if only the Colonel had used his common sense and decided to relinquish control of the ship to him, he could have undoubtedly done better. 

Without waiting for the landing spy to go out, Kylo unfastened his seat belt and went to retrieve his baggage from the hold. He didn’t waste any more time before pressing the button to open the hatch and lower the ramp.

The air on Jakku was stifling. For the first time since they left the Finalizer, Kylo was grateful that only Hux was there to accompany him - he would not have tolerated wearing the helmet in that hellish heat, despite the ventilation system installed inside.

He glanced over his shoulder, seeing Hux still fumbling with his own equipment, and he stepped outside.

He immediately felt it. It was as if every grain of sand, every whiff of wind that glided over the dunes was vibrating with life. At the centre of it all, an unmistakable Force signature animated the infinite expanse of sand that stretched at Kylo's feet from the ruins of the old outpost, extending into the surrounding space like ocean waves, calling him by his name.

_ Rey. _

He started running.

\--

Hux tried his best to follow Ren with his boots sinking rather inelegantly into the sand.

"Great," he muttered, when he realized that the other man had no intention to wait for him. 

The place was exactly as he remembered it: hot, bleak and desolate. At least, this time, he didn't have to run through the dunes to avoid being blown up. A meager consolation, considering the fact that the one person he thought he could rely on had suddenly decided to go his own way.

_ I wonder why I should be surprised. _

He saw Ren crouch behind a semi-destroyed wall and close his eyes, as if he were listening to something that only he could hear, and he realized that if he wanted to find the girl quickly, he would have to do it his way.

In a matter of seconds he reached the ruins of the outpost.

As he prepared to find shelter from the sun beneath the remains of a load-bearing wall, he thought he caught a quick movement to his left. He instinctively flattened his back against the wall, bringing his hand to the blaster he kept fastened at his waist. A small mound of sand collapsed not far from one of the bunker’s entrances.

He raised an arm in Ren’s direction. 

"There is someone", he mimed without making a sound.   
  
Ren nodded, but he didn’t move.    
  
_ What the hell are you waiting for? _

Hux had expected that the idiot would use his powers to scare the girl out of her hiding place as a Loth-cat would do with its prey, but, evidently, he was wrong.

_ You are always incredibly useful, Ren _ , he thought bitterly, before jumping over the wall and sliding on the sand in the direction of the small landslide. Going back to the age of twenty-eight and suddenly getting rid of years of joint pain and restless nights undoubtedly had its positive sides.

Blaster in hand, without even caring if Ren was following him, he entered the maze of tunnels that made up the bunkers. In the distance, a series of rapid footsteps preceded him in the dark. Whoever was running away from him seemed to be quick, light, and smart - if it hadn't been the girl, he would have honestly been surprised.

To the great misfortune of the person he was chasing, Hux remembered all too well how to navigate the labyrinth of corridors, and it didn't take him long to chase the unfortunate towards a dead-end. In the almost impenetrable darkness, Hux could hear her labored breathing stopping a few meters away from him.

He pulled a pocket flashlight from his pants, and he pointed it in front of him. The beam of light illuminated a skinny little girl, whose big black eyes opened wide in a look of pure terror.

"Hi," he said, baring his teeth in a smile that was anything but friendly. "We meet at last."

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggering contents (spoiler alert): part of this chapter is dedicated to Kylo/Ben's feelings towards Rey. Given the purpose of this story, and, most importantly, the considerable age gap between the two characters, we would like to confirm that his feelings are and will always be exclusively platonic and genuinely protective.   
> Other potentially triggering contents: PTSD, manipulative behavior.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting the new chapter a bit later than usual - that's because things are finally getting INTENSE.  
> Thank you so much for your amazing comments, we are extremely grateful for your support and enthusiasm and we read every message with heart eyes. 
> 
> Lots of yelling in this one, and gratuitous Pride and Prejudice quotes just because we're trash.  
> As usual, please refer to the comprehensive TW list at the end of the page: all deaths are temporary, but we understand that some might be more upsetting than others.

He saw Hux leap out of his hiding spot with the same agility of a predator who has just smelled blood. Kylo stared at him for a moment, as if he couldn't understand how he'd been able to react so quickly. The next moment he was already at his heels, even though Hux was moving so fast that he could hardly keep up. Almost.  
The good thing was that, however unpleasant the memories that linked him to the old outpost might have been, they seemed to have indelibly imprinted the plan of the entire network of tunnels in his mind. He managed to extricate himself in that sort of underground labyrinth without ever stopping to change direction, without ever slowing down, not even once. When he finally did, Kylo knew he had captured his prey. He walked past him, forcing him to step aside with a light bump against his shoulder.

Rey was trapped, her back to the wall, and out of breath from running. It would have been difficult to recognize the girl who would one day mark the fate of the entire Galaxy, had it not been for the aura that surrounded her. So similar to his own, enough to give him goosebumps just like the day they crossed swords on the icy ground of Starkiller Base. 

He took a tentative step in her direction.  
  
“Rey?”  
  
The girl's eyes widened.

Behind him, Hux reached for his blaster. Kylo turned abruptly, freezing his action on the spot. "Stay back”, he growled.  
  
All colour drained from Hux’s face, but he complied.

Rey, still trapped against the wall, stared at the two of them with a look of pure terror. Kylo felt it almost as a physical ache.  
  
“Rey”, he called out to her again. “Do you remember me? It’s me”, he crouched down, eye level with her. “It’s Ben.”

Hux's voice was the color of an impending storm. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”

Kylo turned to face him again, just in time to see him aiming the blaster towards his head.  
"Step aside, you colossal imbecile", he ordered.

"No," he growled, raising to his feet and putting himself between Hux and the little girl.

Under different circumstances, he knew that Hux would not have hesitated to pull the trigger. In the past, he would have done it without even thinking about it. In fact, he would have rejoiced in discovering the naivety of an enemy so stupid as to voluntarily put himself in the line of fire. But what they had experienced in the last three days had changed everything. Shooting him now meant accepting to die one more time, together, and starting over. All because he hadn't had the patience to listen to him.

"You don't understand," he said then. "You want to know what happened on Exegol? The girl saved my life, that's what happened. She and I are… connected through the Force, in a way that is beyond your understanding. I won’t let you hurt her, Hux."

\--

Hux absentmindedly thought about how stupid he must have looked, with his eyes wide and his mouth open in an expression of dismay. For a moment that could have very well lasted an eternity, time seemed to stop.. When it finally started flowing again, Hux was hit by a wave of anger like he had never felt before.

"What the fuck are you talking about?", his voice, one octave too high, echoed between the walls of the bunker. "You died on Exegol, you extraordinary nitwit. You told me yourself." He looked first at Ren and then at the little girl, who was now hiding behind the black silhouette of the man, as if to confirm his words. Hux felt like throwing up. “You were the one to insist that we come here and take her out. What the fuck is wrong with you?!" He gestured at him impatiently with the hand wielding the blaster. “Get out of the way and let me finish the job. I will not ask you a second time. Let me do what we came here for, and then get out of my sight."

The little girl, meanwhile, was clinging to Ren's cloak and staring at Hux with the same expression of a feral puppy. Hux returned his gaze with equal disgust.

“She saved me and I saved her. It was the least I could do," Ren insisted, staring him straight in the eye without showing any sign of fear of the weapon the Colonel was waving in his face. “She’s my sister, Hux. The other half of my dyad."

Right there and then, Hux was certain that Ren would have rather died than let the girl be hurt.

He really could have done it - unload all his ammunition on him, lunge at him with his knife held firmly in his grip. He would have been fast enough to sink the blade under his ribs, unless Ren used the Force to block his attack and send him crashing into the opposite wall. But even if he had managed to mortally wound him, even if he had been able to stab the dagger into his heart, it would have changed nothing.

He had already lost.

Defeat was a feeling the former General knew all too well. It had been his faithful companion ever since the disaster of Starkiller Base, and it hadn't abandoned him until the day Pryde had ended his life aboard the Steadfast. In the face of defeat, Hux had done many things - he had worked harder, he had pleaded, he had pondered revenge, he had bowed his head, he had betrayed.

This time Hux did something he had never done before.

He turned his back, and left.

\--

Kylo found himself staring at Hux’s shape shrinking gradually as he walked away into the darkness of the underground bunker. He made to stop him, but something held him back, clinging obstinately to the hem of his cloak. He turned to look at Rey, who returned the glance with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. Kylo sighed. "Be good and wait for me here, ok? I need to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid."

The little girl shook her head with vehemence. “I don’t like him. He’s evil.” 

He knew it was the last thing he should have done, given the situation, but Kylo couldn't help but laugh out loud. “Trust me, you really have no idea.” 

Before he could add anything else, Rey cut him off.

“Are you really my brother?”, she asked, her features furrowed in a suspicious expression. 

Kylo sighed. “It’s… complicated. If you promise me to do as I say and hide from that man”, he nodded in the direction in which Hux had disappeared “I will explain everything to you. But I need to be sure he doesn’t do anything too evil before then.”  
  
“I don’t trust you.”  
  
“What if I give you something nice to eat in the meantime?”

He rummaged in his crumpled travel bag and he pulled out a handful of food bars, enough to fill her belly for a full day. After a few moments of hesitation, Rey grabbed them and began to turn them over in her hands with an air of wonder.

“I still don’t trust you. But-”, she avidly started to tear one open with her teeth.  
  
“I’ll be quick. I promise.”

Now all that remained was to follow Hux's trail and find the way out. Which was not an easy task, since the bastard had decided to leave him behind without a map or a description of the tunnels that could show him the right direction. In the end, it took him less than he had feared, despite stumbling upon a series of dead ends and a half-collapsed tunnel, partially buried by sand and concrete chunks. 

He found him outside, standing in the shadow of an old half-gutted wall, staring at an unspecified point on the horizon. Kylo was amazed at how often he had felt the temptation to spy on his thoughts, ever since they had become involved in that cursed game of fate.

"I'm not going to beg for your forgiveness," he began, approaching him slowly, as if not to startle him. “I thought you were going to shoot me. You wouldn't have thought twice about it, once. It’s not like you to run from problems."

\--  
  


  
He did not turn around when he heard Ren arrive. He waited for him to come closer, for his shadow to mingle with his own and see them both projected on the wall against which he was leaning. Only then he raised the gun.

"I'm asking you for the last time", he repeated, in the same controlled voice with which he would have asked him if he had had a good day. "What really happened on Exegol?"

A gust of warm wind ruffled his hair. He thought absently of the oncoming sandstorm. He hated sandstorms. A long time ago, in that same place, he had nearly drowned in one. He had promised himself that he would never return to Jakku again.

He placed the barrel of the gun under his chin.

“Try to feed me your bullshit again, and I'll reset the cycle. Do it a second time, and I’ll reset it again. I couldn’t care less."

The click of the safety being released rang in the silence of the ruins of the old imperial base.

  
\--

Kylo clenched his fists almost to the point of hurting, in a miserable attempt at keeping his anger at bay. The blinding light of Jakku's suns reflected on the steel barrel of the gun, as if to emphasize Hux's threat. Some time ago he would have snorted, he would have told him to cut it with the nonsense, because doing such a stupid thing wasn’t like him. Hux wasn’t suicidal. Or rather - it wasn't in the beginning of their troubled collaboration. After all, what had been his decision to turn himself into a double agent for the Resistance if not a suicide mission which could only have resulted in his untimely death?

It was then that Kylo realized that the man in front of him was no longer the General who had taken on hordes of rebels at the head of his troops, but a desperate man that months of abuse and humiliation had led to a breaking point. The sound of the safety being released made him shiver to the bones.  
Hux had just cornered him with a single gesture, and now he was trapped, just as Rey had been a few minutes before. Any solution he could think of inevitably ended with Hux pulling the trigger, blowing his brains out, and forcing him to experience the same excruciating pain before being dragged back again.

"You're not thinking straight," he tried, extending his open palm towards him. "Give me the blaster."

Hux let out a bitter laugh.

"You must certainly have some nerve, to accuse me of not thinking clearly," he replied, unflappable, "after dragging me out here for a child you seem to love so dearly."

“If I had told you-” 

Hux interrupted him.

"Is this what we’ve come to, then? Me blackmailing you?" His fingers were gripping the gun so tightly it almost hurt to watch. “But won’t let yourself be manipulated this easily, will you? You’re honorable. You’re not like me.”

There was something disturbing in Hux's calm and controlled tone, with him speaking just as if they were discussing something trivial. Kylo didn't doubt for a single moment that he was being serious.  
There were so many things he could have said or done in order not to be forced to talk about Exegol, Rey, and what had happened. All of them wrong. He didn’t have much of a choice, other than yielding, surrendering to Hux’s will. He took a deep breath and began to speak.

“It started before Exegol, when we fought on the ruins of the Death Star. At the end of the duel I was mortally wounded. She could have left, she could have let me bleed to death on that planet, but she didn't. I... I didn't know what to think. I had never felt like that before. It was terrifying. It was as if I had opened my eyes for the first time and a world of possibilities that I had never even taken into consideration had just opened up for me. Believe me when I tell you that, no matter how hard I try, it's a feeling I'll never be able to describe with words. I rushed to Exegol, stood by her side in front of Palpatine. When the girl was dying, I returned the favor. I had to save her life, even if the price was mine."

Kylo could barely bear the sense of pity he felt for himself. The determination that had led him to forsake everything he had stood for up to that moment to make one last sacrifice was a distant memory. It almost seemed to belong to another person. 

He dared not imagine what kind of thoughts were swirling in Hux's mind now that he knew the truth. He couldn’t have blamed him if he had decided to change his target and shoot him instead. He would have hated him, of course, but that wasn’t new either.

"Is this what you wanted to know?"

\--

  
Hux allowed himself a few seconds to process the answer. He was, perhaps for the first time in his life, at a loss for words.

As much as the implications of what Ren had just confessed made his skin crawl, Hux had no reason to doubt his sincerity. He felt almost offended. He had expected a mystical delirium, an elaborate response full of delusions about the Force, fate and apocalyptic revelations - anything that made sense of what had happened in those days to a strangely thoughtful and malleable Ren, torn by an inner conflict that seemed to have instilled a spark of intelligence in his otherwise empty head.

But no. Instead, according to what he had just confided to him, the idiot simply got a crush. 

Hux slowly lowered the blaster, but kept his finger on the trigger. Ren could have taken the weapon from hand with the force of a single thought, but, at that point, it wouldn't matter. He didn’t know if he wanted to shoot himself, the broken-hearted imbecile in front of him, or the brat hiding in the tunnels. Probably all three, given the situation.

"So, let me recap," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose between the thumb and forefinger of his free hand. “She showed a modicum of human decency towards you when you were hurt, so you decided to-- to sacrifice yourself for her? Absolutely brilliant, Supreme Leader. Almost a shame you didn't get the same commendable idea when I carried you away from the ruins of Starkiller Base, it would have served me well." It was a vile comment and completely gratuitous, he knew that. But he was also already past the point where he might have cared.

“Would you rather have had me standing between you and Pryde and have me executed in your place? You just had to ask." Kylo commented sarcastically, arching an eyebrow.

Ren was obviously not aware that he should have thanked him for not having planted a hole in the center of his forehead yet. Hux had always considered himself an extremely patient man, and the surprisingly non-bloody (for the time being) resolution of their mission to Jakku was but yet another confirmation of that. The reference to his summary execution at the hands of Pryde, however, was threatening to make him change his mind.

"After all the effort you made to have me assigned to his ship so that he could keep tormenting me to his heart’s content? I would never have dared to ask you to give up such fun", he replied, hearing his imperial accent take on an unexpected dialectal inflection and hating himself for not being able to hide it. It hadn't happened in years. The desire to cause Ren physical pain - with his bare hands this time - was almost overwhelming. “I hope the maiden has at least thanked her noble knight, after all he had done for her. Or did she let you die alone like a dog?”

“Thanked me, yes, in a sense… But it’s not like it was- It wasn’t-" 

It was what Ren added, almost ashamed of it, that made him finally explode.

"I would have you executed for high treason, if I had the faculty", he growled, having now forgotten everything about artificial accents and poised demeanours. "But you don't deserve the honor of standing in front of a court martial, either. I really hoped you were doing something that went beyond your personal interest, for once, but clearly I was wrong. From the very first moment, your arrogance and your presumption and disdain for the others made me realize that you were the last person in the entire Galaxy with whom I wanted to have anything to do." 

When was it that Ren had gotten so close? Hux was sure he hadn't moved from where he was, yet the shadow of the wall no longer covered him, and under Jakku's midday sunlight his skin had begun to burn, and he could see every grain of sand resting on the tunic of the man who stood in front of him.

“Are you really telling me that you gave up everything we had fought for over the years for a member of the Resistance? And did you really think about using me again, keeping me in the dark about everything that had happened just for- what, Ren, exactly?! "

The punch he struck against Ren's chest had no effect. Hux hit him again.

"What do you want to do now? _Adopt her_? Bring her to the Finalizer? Hide her from Palpatine until she is old enough to know the truth?" He shook his head, feeling he was about to burst into hysterical laughter. 

Ren grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing him to step back and look him straight in the eye. 

"You talk as if your conduct is somehow superior to mine," he hissed. The inflection of his voice was more like the lament of a wounded beast than that of a human being. “Do you want me to believe you weren't going to kill me when you found me half dead next to Snoke's body? That you didn't already have your hand on the gun when I regained consciousness? I felt it, Hux. The desire you had to end it all, to put me down like a rabid animal and rejoice in having finally removed the only obstacle stood between you and the throne of the Supreme Leader. I had to take the necessary precautions to keep you from succumbing to the temptation, if it happened again. Can you blame me? I don’t think so. You would have done the same if you had been in my place. In fact, something tells me that you would have been able to come up with something even more cruel to humiliate me."

Hux opened his mouth to argue, but Ren cut him off.

“We are what we are. You were right when you said it wasn't just Snoke and his influence that got us this far. Maybe it was inevitable. And if now you want to shoot me in the head and force us to start all over again, to see who manages to kill the other day after day after the damn day first, you are welcome. But don't pretend to be blameless, because we both know perfectly well that this is not the case.”  
  
Hux was vaguely aware of Ren's hands clutching his shoulders, hurting him, of the heat of the sun on his skin and of the sand scratching his face. Every physical sensation was drowned in anger, black and viscous and overwhelming, which made him blind and deaf to anything but Ren and his words - which by that time had become too much, had become overwhelming, and if Hux could not crush them under the weight of his anger they would devour him, he was sure. They had already begun to do this, piece by piece many years ago, taking away first a ship and then the entire fleet, and then stealing Hux from the respect of his peers, finally stripping him of what was left of his pride.

"You were a limb that had to be amputated, Ren", he replied, raising his face until it met the gaze of the other man. "I may have been a rabid bastard who needed to be put down, but you were an infection that could no longer be cured. It was my last chance to save the First Order from your ego, and I spent every miserable day I had left to live regretting that I had hesitated to shoot you."

He tried to swallow, but his lips were too dry.

"I have never felt so much pity for you as in that moment, in the midst of the destruction that you yourself had caused. Not even when I recovered your body from Starkiller Base while the thing of which I have been most proud of in all my life was crumbling under my feet." He realized he still had his hands, clenched into fists, resting on Ren's chest. "I saw the misery you called upon yourself, and I was furious and wanted to erase all memory of you from the face of the universe, and, at the same time, I pitied you. A fatal mistake from which I later learned a lot, no doubt ”, he added, almost composing himself.

“As for your precautions, please don't pretend you don't like seeing me humiliated. I know why you chose Pryde, of all the ex-Imperials that were still around. Everyone on the Steadfast knew it. If I had been in your place, I would have probably forced you to become my hound ", he raised a corner of his mouth in a mocking smile. “I’ve always liked the idea of having your powers at my disposal. Or, simpler still, if you had become unmanageable I would have found a way to eliminate you. But haunt me with a ghost from the past? Ren,” he shook his head. "We are what we are, it's true. And you are a person who likes hurting me. "

_  
_ _\--_

The solution he had at one point even been proud of now seemed like a huge miscalculation. Hux had just admitted that, had he been in his place, he would have had mercy. He would have killed him, maybe, but without ceremony. And instead he, with the absurd belief that Hux would not hesitate to make him the laughing stock of the First Order, had run for cover by unleashing the worst kind of punishment his power-drunk mind could come up with. He felt an invisible grip tightening around the pit of his stomach, and it had nothing to do with Hux's closed fists still pressed against his chest.

"Yours are just conjectures," he replied. “I didn't like watching you being harassed by Pryde any more than you enjoyed saving me from the destruction of Starkiller Base. It was a necessity. A strategist like you should understand that. "

He didn't remember feeling well, those few times he had been forced to witness the General's public humiliation at the hands of his own comrades. The truth was that he had spent a lot of that time looking the other way. But Hux was too caught up in his own pain to notice, and how to blame him? At the time, he was convinced that he had acted solely out of self-preservation. He had put him in his place, and that had been enough. But at the same time he had been blind to what that decision had created in the soul of a man already embittered by a series of defeats, what he had perhaps unwittingly brought to the surface forcing him to face the shadows of his past. The memory of the emotions that had filled the cockpit just before landing on Jakku came back to him tenfold, sickening and oppressive like the suffocating air of the outpost. He opened his mouth to reply but, but before a single sound came out, he was forced to swallow several times, trying in vain to fight off the painful dryness of his throat.

“What would you like me to tell you? That I’m sorry? Or would you rather hear the truth, that if I could go back I would do anything to not have you as an enemy, because a stupid little part of me has always believed that we would be stronger united than divided? Though, come to think of it, it couldn't have worked. What was your conclusion? Ah yes, that our nature would have prevented us from forming a lasting alliance anyway. "

 _But you've already gone back, haven't you? Why not start now living up to what you just said then?_ He pushed the thought away the same way he pushed Hux away from himself with a brusque gesture, because he had realized he could no longer bear his proximity. Even a minute longer under his gaze, which showed cynicism and despair in equal measure, with his hands on him - and when did they put their hands on each other without the explicit intent to hurt, before? - and he would have suffocated. A gust of warm wind swept through the ruins, lifting sand and debris. The storm was coming.

\--

Ren pushed him back, shaking him awake from the trance state in which he had fallen. A couple of thin strands of hair, freed from the wind and the heat of the sun, fell in front of his eyes.

 _Or would you rather hear the truth._ Ren had stabbed him in the back as soon as he had the chance, clutching his hands around his neck as soon as Hux had let his guard down, and lied to him - about Exegol, about the girl, and who knows what else.

_If you just expect me to believe you, if you think I’m so stupid to believe you ever cared about it-_

"I was the best man you had, Ren," he replied, hating himself for the sense of defeat that weighed on his words. "And you left me no choice but to sell myself to the Resistance to try to save the Order from the madness of its leader. You're a terrible strategist, let me tell you. "

 _This is why you need me_ , he thought angrily, as the sand began to swirl around his feet.

“And anyway, from the moment we tried to give life to this unlikely alliance, I have always played with my cards up, even if I have reasonable doubts about our compatibility. I ask you to acknowledge this." He picked up the blaster from the ground, and secured it. "And now we're back to square one, with nothing to help us defeat Palpatine - who will obviously have noticed our intentions by now, so you might as well have let me blow my brains out and saved him the trouble. "

He turned in the direction from which the wind was blowing, wrinkling his nose at the annoyance that the sand caused him.

“When I was five I almost died on this planet. I'm certainly not going to do that now. If Palpatine comes looking for me, I'd rather die aboard my ship. You do what you think is right. Go back to the girl, or listen to whatever idiocy the Force suggests you do. "

Without giving Ren a second glance, Hux returned to the shuttle.

_\--_

Kylo was starting to think that he would never get used to seeing Hux like that - the very picture of resignation, despite the poison in his words. _I was the best man you had_ , he had told him, and it was a terrible truth, which filled his mouth with the bitter taste of guilt. _You still are. We have already tried to kill each other more than once, yet you are still the only one I can count on_ , he thought. But he didn't say it. He suspected that, at that point, stating the obvious would be of little use. Indeed, the only effect that such a comment could have had would have been to enrage Hux even more, perhaps persuading him to linger on that desolate planet long enough for him to list all the ways Kylo had wronged him, one by one. All the different ways he had made him suffer in the timespan following Snoke's death. And then ask him, always with that embittered smile painted on his face, if that is the treatment that is usually reserved for the only person on whom one can still rely.

The wind was picking up. To stand still and argue in vain would have meant dying swept away by the oncoming sandstorm. Hux seemed to notice too, because he suddenly turned his back to him and started walking in the opposite direction, towards the shuttle that was waiting for them a little further in the middle of the dunes. His words had felt like an ultimatum. Kylo looked at the shuttle, and then at the ruins.  
He knew he was about to become the umptenth person to let Rey down.  
  
They were about to die. Either on the Finalizer, or on the way back, but he and Hux wouldn’t have lived to see another day. It wouldn't have happened quickly. Palpatine would probably take his sweet time torturing them first. He would try to violate their minds to find out what they were keeping from him. 

Whatever he was going to do to them, Kylo had to make sure he wouldn’t get to Rey.

He had no idea if Hux would listen to him, but he tried anyway.

"Give me ten minutes", he yelled as loud as he could in Hux’s direction, before running back towards the tunnels.

Rey was waiting for him at the entrance, her little face frowning with disappointment. Kylo wondered how long she had been there waiting for him. Knowing her, she had followed him right away. He prayed she had heard as little as possible, but when he crouched in front of her, she recoiled. Kylo had rarely felt so heartbroken in his entire life. 

"Rey..."

“You’re leaving.” 

He could read betrayal all over the little girl’s face, and he felt like the biggest idiot in the whole Galaxy. He passed a hand over his face, and sighed deeply.

“Rey, please. Listen to me.” 

“Are you really my brother, at least?” 

There was something beyond the betrayal, something wild and desperate that Kylo, hadn’t he known Rey any better, would have never dared to call hope. He wanted to reach out for her, not like he did in Snoke’s throne room a lifetime ago, but to offer her some kind of comfort. He did nothing of the sort. Rey didn’t deserve commiseration, she deserved answers. 

“I need you to listen to me Rey. It’s really important. One day, someone who will love you very much will arrive here and will take you away from this planet. I thought that that person would be me, but I was wrong. I can’t, not now. Not yet.”  
  
“But you said…”  
  
“There’s something very dangerous I need to do. I’m not even sure I can do it, but I must try. I would have loved to take you with me, Rey, but I can’t. I thought I could, and I acted recklessly and barged into your life without thinking about the consequences. I’ve been foolish and impulsive like I always am, and I hurt you. I don’t know when I will see you again, but I can promise you this: you won’t be alone forever.”  
  
They were both silent for a time that seemed eternal. Rey's face was that of a child, but there was something ancient in the countenance with which she was looking at him, something much older and wiser than the extraordinary connection that tied their destinies together.  
  
“I feel you are telling me the truth.” 

The relief Kylo was filled with was almost impossible to describe. He silently thanked the Force for making things easier for him, at least for once.  
He raised to his feet. 

“There’s still a lot of things that I don’t know, and even more things that I cannot tell you, but please remember this: your brother loves you, Rey, and he will do anything to keep you safe.”  
  
Rey looked towards the shuttle.

“He’s very hurt, you know.” 

Kylo followed her gaze, and found Hux standing on the top of the small ladder that connected the entrance of the shuttle to the ground. 

“Well, he hurt me as well. He should have expected that.” 

Rey crossed her arms over her chest.

“Well, you just hurt me, but it’s not like I want to hurt you in turn. Only a bit, maybe. But not that much. Is it normal?”

Kylo blinked, perplexed. 

“What? Hurting people?”  
  
“No”, she answered with a small huff. “Trusting you. Because I feel like I can trust you with my life, but the other man, despite knowing you, certainly doesn’t.” 

“I can’t really blame you. But I am honored to have your trust.”

A small, sad smile, appeared on Rey’s face, making her look way older than her age. A moment later her thin arms were trying to close around his middle, enveloping Kylo in the tightest hug he had ever received in his entire life.  
  
“Please, Ben. Come back soon.” 

Kylo awkwardly returned the hug.  
_Stay,_ an unknown voice was telling him. _Stay and hide from Palpatine. Stay with Rey and train her until she will be old enough to understand the importance of her legacy; until you and her will be ready to face the Emperor like you did the last time._

“May the Force be with you, Rey.”

\--

Hux decided to give Ren ten minutes before starting the engines and setting the course for the Finalizer without him. He had almost expected him to disappear forever into one of the bunkers with the brat, or to bring her on board without asking for his permission first. It was therefore to his greatest surprise that he saw Ren taking his leave from the girl and walking back towards the shuttle, wind and sand and dirt twirling around him like the planet couldn’t believe he had decided to act like a rational human being, for once.  
Hux felt something expand his chest, something he dared not call relief.

Needless to say, his moderate contentment was short lived. He had hoped Ren would not dare speak to him again, but evidently the mind of that insufferable man operated in ways mere mortals could never understand. 

"What happened the last time you’ve been here?", Ren asked as soon as he started climbing the ladder. “You said you wanted to play with our cards face up. I told you about Exegol. Now it’s your turn.”

Initially, he thought the idiot just wanted to make small talk. What Hux had just told him must have rolled off his back like a drop of water on a transparisteel wall, as effective as the punches he had pathetically tried to land against his chest. As far as Hux was concerned, Ren was someone who felt simple, albeit intense, emotions. He had probably interpreted his disproportionate reaction as an outburst caused by the fact that he had prevented him from killing the child. So much the better. Hux hated being emotional, and in the last half hour he had been too much.

But Ren was asking him to reveal his cards

_as if he hadn’t been doing precisely that all along_

and Hux, feeling drained, found no good reason to refuse.

"I guess you've heard of the Battle of Jakku," he said, shaking the sand off his boots before stepping inside the cockpit. He had spent no more than a couple of hours on that hideous planet, and he already felt the compelling need to take a shower. "It was the last battle fought between what remained of the Empire and the New Republic. I don't think I need to tell you what the outcome was, given that your mother was leading the winning coalition. "

He took his place at the steering console, again as first pilot. He waited for Ren to enter the cockpit, and operated the mechanism to close the entrance door.

"I was five at the time. We were some of the survivors that escaped the last planets loyal to the Empire. After Vader's defeat on Endor, Gallius Rax had taken control of the army." He activated the localisation signal, hoping to have the coordinates of the Finalizer quickly sent over. “Jakku had become our last stronghold, and it was obvious that we were going to be decimated - it still wasn't that obvious to me, of course. It was the first time I was in a battle and I barely knew how to shoot."

He rested his back on the seat, waiting for the Finalizer to give him the green light for their return.

"Rax and my father had no intention of dying like rats, and they were willing to blow up the whole planet to destroy the Empire and the Republic in one fell swoop, while they, along with a small circle of privileged people" - he grimaced - "would flee to the Unknown Regions to establish a new military junta."

The coordinates of the Finalizer arrived promptly. Hux entered them - fortunately the Finalizer hadn't moved much from its previous position - while speaking. 

"Thankfully, the intervention of the best officer the Empire has ever had - undeservedly, in my humble opinion - prevented the worst from happening. Admiral Rae Sloane assassinated Rax, preventing the planet from being destroyed. The rest of Rax's plan went smoothly - except for his sudden demise, of course. But I doubt many shed a tear for him." _I certainly didn’t_. “We managed to evacuate the planet before the Republic bombed our hideout. It wasn't exactly painless, but…” he shrugged. "It worked. I think you know the rest of the story, so I won't bore you any further."

\--

He had been naive to think that Hux would share more about his experience on Jakku than it was strictly necessary. Kylo realized this when, as he followed him inside the shuttle without bothering to shake the dust off his clothes before entering the cockpit, he was given a history lesson about the last battle of the Imperial army, now reduced to a handful of desperate people, against the forces of the Resistance. As if he hadn't already heard the same story countless times from his mother, father, former commanders and old comrades his family surrounded themselves with when he was still a child. Of course, the version he remembered was a little different, sprinkled with moralizing remarks about the inevitable triumph of good over evil and tear-jerking details about all the brave fighters who had faced death in order to restore peace and prosperity into the Galaxy. Of what Hux had said to him as he absentmindedly set the return route on the control panel, there was very little he did not already know.

Only one detail was out of place. Something unexpectedly personal, which did not suit the detachment with which he had told the rest of the story, and which perhaps he had let slip without even realizing it, so mundane it must have been in his eyes. Kylo had almost missed it.

  
_I was five_.

  
The image of Hux as a child with a too heavy rifle clutched in his hands, trembling with fear and adrenaline as a pack of angry adults ordered him to shoot, hit him harder than he expected. Hux had stared death right into its face, perhaps he had learned to kill before he even knew how to read and write. It was an awareness that had always been there, somewhere hidden in the meander of his mind, but which he hadn't given much weight to. The General who never missed an opportunity to test his patience couldn’t have been more different from a terrified child struggling to survive his first battle.  
His moral compass must really have been skewed, because he found the very thought nauseating. There was nothing he could do to prevent a feeling he had seldom felt from lurking at the edges of his consciousness - compassion.

"You were just a child," he muttered, unable to resist the temptation to turn his head and seek some sort of confirmation in Hux's gaze. "Your father..." 

Your father what? Since setting foot on the First Order ships he had heard an unimaginable amount of hideous stories about old man Brendol, many of which he had later discovered came too close to reality. As far as he knew, Hux Senior could very well have been the first to put a weapon in his son's hands and urge him to use it, threatening him with cruel punishments if he refused or, worse still, if he was too afraid to obey. On the other hand, wasn't that exactly the reason why he had decided to force Hux to work alongside Pryde? Hadn’t he hoped the remainder of a bygone time when he was just a recruit at the mercy of senior Imperial officers would be unpleasant enough to keep him at bay?

Hux rolled his eyes.

“Glad to have introduced you to the concept of child soldiers, Ren," he replied, starting the take-off maneuvers. “The First Order has not always had sufficient resources to train its soldiers until they came of age. There were times we had to settle for what we had." The gusts of wind leading up to the storm were making takeoff more complicated than expected. "It was quite the formative experience, even if it is not among the training methods that I would personally feel like adopting."

The reduced visibility was making Hux nervous.

"What would you like to know about my father, by the way?", he added sarcastically. “I assume that whatever it is, you can still ask him in person. He will show up often on the Finalizer, at least for a few more years."

Kylo noticed immediately the vague sense of unease that began to wrap itself around the Colonel. It could have easily been blamed on the difficulty he was having in getting the shuttle off the ground, with what was about to become a real sandstorm raging on every side, but the fact that it had manifested just as the conversation had shifted to one person in particular left little room for doubt.  
In his previous life, Kylo had deigned Hux's father of little consideration - he had merely shown him the respect and courtesy that Snoke had tried to instill in him before sending him off to work with the First Order, each time finding a excuse for not having to attend the long and tedious meetings that kept him and his colleagues busy discussing for hours the best strategy to adopt to track down the Resistance and all their sympathizers. He couldn’t say he had been relieved or displeased by the news of his death, nor had he realized that Hux must have played a fundamental role in it. Brendol Hux had been, as far as he was concerned, yet another officer in a sea of officers all virtually identical to one another, who did nothing but look at his powers with undisguised mistrust and blather about a glorious empire that it had crumbled before he was even born.  
  
If the grip of anxiety began to suffocate Hux at the mere memory of his father, he dared not imagine the terror that would come over him when he found himself face to face with him, after having believed for so long that he had been freed from him forever. Which, Kylo considered, could become a problem. Although he would have gladly died rather than admitting it out loud, he did not trust his own ability to remain calm and rational enough for both of them. He was pretty sure Hux would have no objections to the idea of somehow hastening old Brendol’s disappearance. Assuming they would stay alive long enough to have to worry about that, of course, and that after what had happened on Jakku Hux would still be willing to cooperate. Which, alas, he couldn't take for granted.

He was distracted from his thoughts when the shuttle tried to lift itself and swayed sharply. He cast a worried glance at what little he could see of the sand-covered surface beyond the glass, then returned to look at Hux.

"I know we're probably doomed already, but if we still have even the smallest chance to get to the Finalizer safe and sound I wouldn't want to waste it like that. I don’t know about you."

"Hm?", Hux muttered absently, his mind evidently somewhere else as a particularly violent gust of wind and sand caused the cockpit to tilt dangerously.

"Move," Kylo ordered impatiently. He gave Hux a slight push with the Force, little more than an encouragement to get up and hand over his seat. Certainly not violent enough to crash him into the opposite wall - although part of him almost craved it.  
He sat down in front of the controls, ignoring Hux's outraged muttering. One of the few things he could have been grateful about his father was the insistence with which he had wanted to teach him to fly any vehicle that lay unused in the Resistance hangars. In a way, he could say he had learned to walk and fly a medium-sized ship at the same time.

It was not one of his most dignified take-offs. For several minutes the shuttle proceeded with jumps and sudden jolts, struggling to gain altitude despite Kylo’s efforts to find an opening in the midst of the whirlwind of sand, rocks and headwinds that hit them mercilessly. Only he finally managed to make it rise above the storm and then even higher, until it exited Jakku's atmosphere, he allowed himself a brief sigh of relief. 

"Don’t look at me like that,” he said, feeling Hux’s murderous gaze on him. “You would have had the both of us killed."

\--

It was the last straw. He had tolerated Ren's selfishness, he had endured his recriminations and the inappropriate questions he had asked, as if he and Hux were old friends and not two people who had been forced to collaborate against their own will. The fact that Ren had used the Force to move him - again, as if Hux hadn't been a person but a rag puppet - made him lose what little self-control he had left.

"Never do that again", he hissed, moving away from the seat. 

"Seriously? Ren answered, turning towards him with a baffled expression. “I just saved us. Could you just stop interpreting everything I do as a direct attack on your person?"

He wasn't safe. He would never be safe. Ren would have no qualms about using his powers on him again, and, of all the harassment Hux had endured throughout his life, having his body manipulated and abused by Snoke and Ren had been the most humiliating and painful thing he had ever experienced. It was not just the physical pain, but the sense of helplessness, and even though this time Ren had pushed him with enough carefulness not to hurt - just because he needed him, _but what will he do to you once you Palpatine is gone_ -

He turned his back on Ren and went to shut himself in the small refresher, trying to convince his brain that he was not running away, that he was not hiding, that he was not scared, but that he was just trying to put as much distance as possible between an unpredictable beast and himself.

Hux realized, as he undressed and diligently put his clothes on the small refresher hanger, that he was exhausted. Twenty-four hours at the mercy of Ren and his incomprehensible mood swings had completely drained him of his energy. He needed a hot shower, but he would have to settle for the sonic waves the shuttle was provided with. Then he would go and lock himself up in the engine room, or the hatch, and spend the next twenty hours trying to figure out how to approach the upcoming days (if he still had some left to live) without having a nervous breakdown.

Instead.

Instead everything went to hell.

They didn’t even make it to the Finalizer.  
  
Locked in the engine room, Hux had had enough time to think about how they would die - quietly, in the audience hall, or executed for treason in Snoke’s throne room on the Supremacy in front of all the First Order High Command.

Instead it was sudden and, at least, relatively quick. It certainly wasn't painless.

It began with Ren's piercing cry, similar to that of a slaughtered animal, coming from the cockpit. Hux had the vague impression of covering the few meters that separated the engine room from the control panel in less than two seconds. Ren was lying on the ground, a trickle of blood running down his chin, another that seemed to come from inside his left ear. He turned towards him, trying in vain to tell him something, only to be thrown to the ground by an invisible force. He brought his hands up to his stomach, and he retched. Blood.

A moment later Hux was kneeling in front of him, one hand anchored on his shoulder and the other pressed against his chest, trying to support his weight as well as he could. 

And then it happened.

It was as if all his internal organs were being torn apart by invisible hands which, crawling under his skin and ripping him apart with their claws. He heard a scream - his own, probably, but he couldn't be sure. And then another, ancient and inhuman and all too familiar, who asked him _what exactly he thought he was doing and how he dared to corrupt his apprentice and how he knew about Jakku and the girl_

And yet another voice, this time belonging to the man who was dying in front of him, the words spoken only inside his head, so loud they erased everything else.

_He doesn’t know._

Hux raised his head, the pain setting his body on fire, frantically seeking something he could focus on - Ren’s bloodied face, the bottomless darkness of his eyes.  
He nodded, an imperceptible movement of his head to tell the other man he understood.

He remembered little of what happened next: Ren's right hand grasping the hilt of his sabre secured to his belt, the pressure of his other hand on his back, pushing him forward against a chest that rose and fell in muffled gasps, Ren’s forehead against his own, blood and a soft lock of black hair falling on his cheek, the sound of a saber being switched on and the smell of smoke, _the smell of burning flesh_

Then the most intense pain he had ever felt, and which seemed to tear through him from side to side, from the point where Ren's hand had rested on the small of his back up to his heart, and again Ren's voice in his head, louder than everything else, louder than the pain. 

_See you later._

And then, Hux had awakened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings (spoilers!): the major triggers in this one are probably suicide and suicide ideation.  
> In this chapter, and further in the story, it will be taken into consideration as the last resort to reset the clock when things involving Palpatine are getting out of hand.  
> It's a theme that will be explored and developed as carefully as possible, but we understand why some readers might feel upset by it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a transitional chapter here - we're about to enter the second section of our story.  
> Thank you so much for sticking with us and with our favorite terrible boys!
> 
> As usual, check the notes at the end for an exhaustive list of potentially triggering contents.

It had been a mad, desperate attempt.    
When Kylo had suddenly found himself falling to his knees on the polished floor of the shuttle, his organs torn apart by invisible claws, and Hux had appeared on the cockpit doorway, a single thought had crossed his pain-clouded mind: to save what could be saved. It wasn't a decision he would have made had he been lucid, or had he had at least some presence of mind left. The moment he met the other man's gaze, he had almost expected Hux to rebel, to use his last strengths to try and get away - t _ o go where, now that their only means of transport had turned into a trap nobody could escape from? _ \- or to somehow prevent Kylo from involving him in his suicidal plan.    
Instead, Hux had looked at him with unexpected determination in his eyes. And he had nodded.

The rest had happened quickly. One last effort to hold Hux close and reach for the hilt of the saber with the other hand, and a final stab of excruciating pain that took his breath away.    
And then, darkness. The same oppressive darkness in which he awoke to what it could have been a few seconds or even days away from the disastrous outcome of their expedition on Jakku. The thud of the engine, humming beneath the floor and the feeling of rough sheets against his skin were all too familiar.

It had worked.

If until a few hours before the thought of having to relive the same day for the fourth time in a row had made him sick to his stomach, now, seeing the outline of an all too familiar place, half-hidden by the shadows, gave him an unexpected feeling of comfort. He allowed himself a few minutes to catch his breath, to at least try to recover a semblance of calm. He knew that once the light would be on, once he would set foot on the Finalizer he would be in danger once more, and this time he had no intention of being caught unprepared. The sound of someone knocking insistently on the cabin door pulled him out of his trance.

"Just leave!", he growled, enough to be heard loud and clear even on the other side of the wall. There was a moment of silence, which was soon filled with the sound of footsteps hurrying away down the hall. Kylo took a deep breath, pressing his hands to his eyes. He knew he would soon need to start preparing for the landing. As absurd as it may have seemed, there would have been no greater relief for him than the sight of Hux staring straight ahead with his impassive gaze, his booths polished and his hands tightly clasped behind his back, waiting for him at the end of the hangar.

\--

Having learned the script to perfection, Hux rushed to the meeting point with an unmotivated sense of apprehension, which only subsided when he saw the familiar figure of Kylo Ren descend the ramp and stop in front of him.

Apparently, they had really made it.

Cautious by nature, Hux refrained from celebrating victory just yet. There was still the possibility that Ren had been wrong, and that Palpatine was aware of what was happening - or even that, for some unexplainable reason, Ren did not remember anything; and that was an even more frightening scenario.

"I welcome you aboard the Finalizer, Lord Ren", he greeted him, inviting him to follow him towards Snoke's audience room.

Just before the elevator came into sight, Hux made a small detour and entered an isolated corridor. When he was sure that he and Ren were alone, he allowed himself to relax his shoulders and let go of the breath he had been holding until that moment.

“Are you sure he doesn't know anything?”, he asked, without too many preambles.

Something in Ren’s posture relaxed as well.

“I'm more than sure. I acted as soon as I realized what was happening. Palpatine may be powerful, but not even a Sith Lord can read the minds of the dead." 

Hux had the distinct impression that there was a missing " _ hopefully? _ " lingering in the air, but he couldn’t really blame Ren for being wary. 

Maybe he should have asked him how he was feeling, or say something about what happened during their last few minutes on the shuttle. Thank him for how quickly he had acted to put an end to the torture, probably, and for keeping Palpatine away from his mind. It would have been fair. Ren was not - in the strict sense of the word - one of his fellow soldiers, but it wasn't like him to ignore such a spontaneous display of courage and altruism on the battlefield. Had Ren been a subordinate of his, Hux would have at least tried to award him a badge of honor. But Ren had no place in any of the neat filing cabinets in which Hux’s mind filed the First Order’s soldiers.

Out of habit, he folded his arms behind his back in a resting position.

"I congratulate you on the firmness with which you have dealt with the situation, in spite of how unexpected it was," he said, his imperial inflection maybe more accentuated than the necessary. "I really appreciated your quick wit."

Ren tilted his mask to the side. 

“A sincere praise from General Hux. I never thought I'd see the day", he said, without even trying to hide the irony. “I did what I could. I couldn't let him win like that."

Hux made a rather funny sound from his nose, halfway between a laugh and a snort.

"You better not get used to it, in fact," he replied, but without the maliciousness he would normally have used. The fact that Ren had remembered which was the correct title to address him with had  _ absolutely  _ nothing to do with it. "I'm counting on your mental defenses now," he added, glancing down the corridor to check for an eventual patrol. “If we're lucky, things will go exactly like they did the first day. I will be dismissed, while you will be forced to stay in Snoke’s presence for a little while. After that", he continued, extracting his datapad from inside the uniform, "you will be taken back to your quarters, while I will be on duty until 1830." He quickly made a note. "At that point I will send you a message, inviting you to my accommodations for an informal interview that will take place at 2100, exactly like three - ah, let's call them  _ days  _ \- ago." He put the device back inside the jacket.

“If it's my ability to keep my thoughts at bay that worries you, you have nothing to fear”, Ren answered, for once managing not to sound offended. “I’ve already managed to hide them from him in the past, I don't see why it should be any different today.” 

Hux was about to offer him a skeptical look, but he quickly decided against it. Better not spoil Ren’s unexpected good mood. 

“This time I am compelled to courteously ask you not to take advantage of my hospitality by making my trachea collapse. I will keep you away from my alcoholic drinks, just in case", he answered instead, with the same light tone with which he had reminded Ren not to hope for frequent praises.

It was difficult to explain how he was feeling. Despite the events of the previous day, which had temporarily led him to avoid any contact with Ren that was not strictly necessary, what had happened during Palpatine's attempt to extract the truth from them was now forcing him to reconsider the situation. Just like when he woke up alive and well right after Ren had suffocated him, Hux felt oddly galvanized. But if that time he had quickly fallen prey to something that was very close to a God complex - not entirely unjustified, in his humble opinion - this time the feeling was very similar to  _ trust _ .

Not in Ren, of course. Ren was unpredictable and fickle and utterly unreliable. Yet that same impulsiveness that had almost sanctioned Hux's final nervous breakdown on Jakku had also saved his life. Hux had no doubts about what had happened aboard the shuttle - an intuition that had prompted Ren to do the right thing at the right time, protecting both of them from Palpatine while simultaneously resetting the time efficiently and (almost) painlessly. For the first time in his life, Hux felt that he had Ren's power not against him, but at his own service. And that changed everything.

\--

When Hux responded to the provocation, Kylo realized that there was something different in the air, as well as in the other man's voice. He was strangely devoid of the cutting sarcasm that always made him want to fight back, snap at him, do anything in order to silence him. It betrayed, instead, a note of amusement. All of a sudden he was seized by a strange brand of curiosity he had never felt before and that, if Hux himself had not intervened to divert the conversation towards more urgent matters, he might have prompted him to continue teasing him just for the sake of seeing how much he could go that far before the amusement morphed back into contempt. 

Hux had used that same indifferent tone even when mentioning the unfortunate incident of the first day, which left Kylo pleasantly surprised, if slightly confused. He would have expected Hux to pretend he had already forgotten the episode, so as not to risk shaking the foundations of their precarious alliance, which barely resisted up after the sensational failure of the previous day. And yet Hux spoke of it as if it were something of little consequence, indeed, something that in retrospect almost made him want to laugh.    
Never as in that moment had Kylo been more sure that, however deeply he could dig into Hux’s mind and how intensely he could syntonize himself on his feelings, he would never be able to fully understand him.

"Very well. If everything goes as it should, we will be left with enough time to develop a decent strategy. Without alcohol or backstabbing, this time", hidden by the mask, the hint of a smile had formed in the corner of his mouth. “Speaking of which, I'm afraid we have to hurry. Snoke will be waiting for us by now."

He started walking towards the elevator when he remembered that, as far as the rest of the First Order was aware, he had no way of knowing exactly which way to go to get to the audience hall, and at that point he had much more to worry about than using the Force to get the passing officers to ignore that little variation on the script. He therefore motioned for Hux to go first, so that he could follow him towards the lift.

"Glad to know that you have had the opportunity to reflect on the precariousness of your strategies," Hux said, offering him something that was supposed to be an angelic smile, before leading him down the corridor.

The elevator ride turned out to be less tense than last time, although being confined into a closed space with Hux would probably never become one of Kylo's favorite activities.

"Anyway," Hux pondered, his eyes fixed on the display on which the various levels of the ship scrolled one by one. “Do you have any clearer idea about what's going on? I mean, considering  _ ad absurdum _ ", he broke off, seeing the elevator doors open. Three troopers made to enter the elevator, but Hux crushed their attempt in the bud with a murderous look. The sliding doors closed, and the Colonel resumed his speech unperturbed. “Let's assume that your theory has not been pulled out of the air, and that we are both part of a mysterious providential design - which, needless to say, goes against everything I believe in. I deduce that you trust that, with the elimination of our enemy, the normal course of time would therefore be restored?"

If Kylo was sure that was some insane ploy devised by the Force to make him act on Its behalf? Absolutely. As for providing concrete evidence, he had to resign himself to the knowledge that no proof would ever satisfy Hux. His skepticism of anything that went beyond his understanding, based solely on the cold laws of physics and logic, would have undermined anything and everything he might have offered him as a way of explanation. Even worse, his questions would have crept doubt into what, as far as he was concerned, was a solid, almost immovable certainty. He couldn't allow it. He did not even want to think about the possibility that what was happening to him was completely random, that there was no goal to pursue or a specific purpose other than to drive them both to madness. To be honest, he didn't even know why Hux wanted to discuss it right now, since he must have been well aware that neither of them would admit to being wrong and accept the theories of the other without objecting. It would have been useless, as it had been the dozens of other times the then General had refused to accept his advice, claiming that he absolutely could not move his troops to follow his " _ hunch _ ". Nothing he had said and done to persuade him it wasn't just some baseless gut feeling had ever managed to make him change his mind.

"Do you want to know if I'm sure or if I can prove it?", he asked back. "Yes, I'm sure the Force has something to do with what’s happening to us, and Palpatine's death is the key. Once he is out of the way, time will flow back to normal - or at least I hope so. But if you need something more concrete to convince you, I'm afraid I have nothing to offer."

He purposely left out the details of what would happen after Palpatine's death - the destruction of the First Order, the annihilation of the entire fleet and of Hux himself, if he decided to come between him and the well-deserved peace that the Force would have granted him once his mission had been completed. In the last few days, he had been so busy trying to get rid of Hux first and to secure his cooperation later, he had almost forgotten what his duty was.    
But it was premature to think about it now. In fact, better not think about it at all, if he wanted to avoid Snoke perceiving his unease and starting to develop some suspicions.

_ One thing at a time. Stay focused. _

The automatic elevator doors opened with a metallic sound. This time Kylo got out first, letting Hux hurry to catch up and walk alongside him.

-

He made a slight motion of discomfort in seeing Ren surpass him, finding himself forced to pick up the pace to walk beside him again. At least Snoke, with a little luck, would have believed the knight eager to meet him. Sometimes Ren's impetuousness had its perks.

They were probably both suffering from the exhaustion of the last few days, to which the delirium of the previous months had to be added. Hux couldn't remember the last time he took a day off. Certainly it had happened long before the inauguration of Starkiller Base - it must have been at least two years. And he hadn't been taking stimulants in days. Sooner or later his brain would realize how bad Hux had been treating himself and would present him with the bill. For the moment, however, Hux intended to enjoy the unexpected adrenaline rush.

Upon reaching the entrance to the audience hall, Hux allowed himself a moment to take a deep breath and prepare his mind. The technique was now well-tried, perfected from years of serving first under Snoke and then Ren - focus on a few strong but justifiable emotions, make them surface, and let them drown any possible treacherous thought.

That time it proved to be more difficult than expected. The emotions that Hux might have called strong all revolved around things Snoke should never have known - the previous day on Jakku, his own summary execution at the hands of Pryde, the uncertainty about the nature of the time loop he had been involved in against his will. He tried to cling onto something that had always worked: the resentment towards Ren, the annoyance he had felt in seeing him assigned to his own ship, the desire to complete his social climb by dethroning his father first, then Ren, then Snoke himself.

_ an invisible hand gripping his throat _

_ a body lying in the snow _

_ "Long live the Supreme Leader" _

_ an arm that supported him as his chest was pierced from side to side _

_ "I sense unease about my appearance, General Hux" _

_ "You were just a child ..." _

Hux clenched his hands into fists until he felt his palms hurt.

_ Concentrate. _

He took a deep breath, and crossed the threshold.

"Supreme Leader," he greeted, bowing his head slightly, in a gesture of deference. The thought of all the times he'd performed that same gesture with sincere admiration before discovering the truth disgusted him, but he forced himself to shoo it away from his mind before he could create a flaw in his perfect demeanor. The seconds that passed before Snoke finally spoke seemed to last an eternity.

"Thank you for taking care of my apprentice personally, Colonel," he said, and Hux felt the tensed-up muscles of his shoulders relax imperceptibly. “You can now return to your duties,” he said, dismissing Hux with a wave of his hand. "I wish to talk privately with Lord Ren."

_ Don't look relieved. Be offended. Show yourself outraged. _

"Of course, Supreme Leader," Hux replied through gritted teeth, before profounding himself in a bow and leaving the audience room - not before casting a disgusted glance in Ren's direction, for good measure.

It was only when the elevator doors closed behind him that Hux allowed himself to let out a sigh of relief. Now all the responsibility fell on Ren - not the most consoling of situations but, at least, if things went wrong this time Hux would not have had his share of the blame.

Now Hux could finally begin to give shape to the idea that had begun to buzz in his head as he was escorting Ren to Snoke.

Ren seemed, for reasons beyond Hux's comprehension, to be certain that time would return to normal once Snoke was eliminated. Which, needless to say, was absolutely not good.

Hux didn't have the slightest intention of closing the matter in a hurry without first making full use of the possibilities that going back to the starting point could offer him. Being free to make mistakes and being able to retrace his steps to fix them was something he had never been allowed to do before. Now, however, infinite possibilities were unfolding before him: not only did he possess the knowledge of all future events, but he also had the ability to change them as often as he wanted while learning from his mistakes in the meantime.

The sense of predestination that had accompanied him since childhood seemed to burn now, stronger than it had ever been, at the center of his chest. Ren intended to close the matters with Palpatine as quickly as possible, but Ren had no idea how to live in the real world and lacked the imaginative and planning skills of a true political leader. He was a magnificent instrument of war, though an instrument and nothing more, while Hux would have been able to use the time at his disposal to do what he had always felt it was his call: save the Galaxy from the chaos that was devouring it, and reign over every System bringing order and harmony.

Things would not begin to go downhill until a few years later. Therefore, Hux had plenty of time to overthrow Palpatine, take over the leadership of the Order, exterminate the Resistance and force the New Republic to surrender. The only difficulty was getting Ren to play a longer game than expected - a war of attrition instead of a blitz, to use the military jargon.

To do this, Hux would have to move cautiously and make Ren believe that he was acting in the interests of both of them. He needed to work out a strategy and find a way to get Ren to follow his lead without asking too many questions. And he needed to do it before Ren decided to do something reckless again.

There was one thing Hux could do - waste time, possibly away from Ren, and use the opportunity to come up with a strategy.

A quick glance at his datapad told him he had thirty-six days of untapped license.

Hux smiled to himself. Time to take a vacation.

\--

  
Kylo couldn't help but glance in Hux's direction as he walked away. The slight sense of relief that pervaded him then, much like what he had felt a few hours earlier in realizing that the Colonel was there waiting for him exactly like all the previous days, was easy to disguise as the relief that the old Kylo Ren would have felt realizing that no one was going to interfere with the privileged relationship that existed between him and his mentor. However, Snoke must have noticed an unexpected change in his mood, and at that point it was almost impossible to stop himself from thinking a curse. This was definitely not the time to let his guard down.

"Is something troubling you, my apprentice?", he asked, as expected.

"With all due respect, Supreme Leader, I have some doubts about the officer you have chosen to assign to me. I know the trust you have in him is great, but whatever your plans are, I don't think Colonel Hux is the right person to accomplish them. And I fear the sentiment is reciprocated. The Colonel feels as much distrust of me as I feel of him."

It was an excuse that he had already used before, that of justifying the restlessness that had pervaded him in realizing that he had inexplicably gone back in time, behind the facade of the skepticism he had felt in the early days towards Hux. An excuse that had worked, and which seemed to have more or less the same effect this time too. Snoke pondered his answer for a few minutes before resuming his speech.

"Hux is a rabid dog that needs to be kept at bay, you're right about that. But you mustn't let your dislike for him cloud your judgment", Snoke replied, exactly like the previous time. "The Colonel is also an exceptionally gifted strategist, I would dare say indispensable for the future of the First Order."

"I really hope you're right," Kylo muttered, trying not to adopt an overly complacent behavior that would surely have made the Supreme Leader suspicious, accustomed as he was to his fickle temperament during his training.

“I advise you to observe him carefully. You will find that you have many things to learn from Hux."

And at that point there was no need to pretend. Many things had changed over the next six years, but the idea that he had something to learn from someone like Hux was still ridiculous. Fortunately, the interview went on without further incidents, until Snoke decided to dismiss him.    
  
Kylo soon found himself walking the long corridors of the Finalizer on the way to his quarters, with Mitaka walking in front of him to show him the way. He let him give him the access code before moving him away with a hasty wave of his hand, assuring him that for any need he would not hesitate to call a droid, and crossed the threshold.    
There were still a few hours to go until his meeting with Hux, just after dinnertime. The awareness of depending on him for the next steps was as detestable as it was necessary. After the disaster he had caused with his hasty decision, he owed Hux a chance to be the one to choose the plan to be implemented and discover together if his alleged skills as a military strategist would make a difference or if - more likely - they would both meet the same end as the day before.    
A part of him wished it would be so, if only not to have to admit to himself that he was somehow inferior to the Colonel, while the other part silently prayed that, at the price of his wounded pride, he would at least be spared an agony similar to the one he had endured on the return trip from Jakku. With a sigh, he shed his cloak, helmet, and boots, and he lay down on the sofa. Here he was facing one of his worst enemies: waiting.

\--

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, except for a pleasant half an hour spent in Phasma's company, during which Hux had to try this best not to do anything incredibly stupid - like comradely clapping his hand on her back and showing his (measured, moderate) enthusiasm for the fact that the one person in the entire Galaxy he genuinely liked was still alive.   
It would have been completely out of place, as well as difficult to explain, and Hux had more pressing issues on his mind. He did not miss the suspicious look with which Phasma had accepted the dinner invitation for the following night (Hux would have invited her to his rooms that very same evening, but Ren would have probably made a scene), but he managed to elegantly gloss over the questions concerning his physical and mental health

_ You weren't so happy to see me even that time I picked you up at the last minute from that ice-covered asteroid that was about to blow up, Armitage. Shall I take you to the infirmary? _

and to go back to work with a decidedly improved mood.

He enjoyed the leisurely afternoon, this time, basking in the sound of the air-purification system spreading through the corridors of the Finalizer like a pleasant hum. He exchanged a couple of words with Unamo, and he even grabbed a coffee with Opan, even if the conversation offered by the sniper was certainly not one of the most stimulating that Hux had ever had in his life.

His shift - mostly spent dealing with the equivalent of three months of bureaucracy - ended almost without Hux noticing. Back in his rooms, he rewarded himself with the hot shower he had been craving for two days, and replaced his uniform with more comfortable clothes, over which he tied his dressing gown, checking in the mirror - more out of habit than for real scruple - that it was free of creases and wrinkles.

There was still half an hour before Ren arrived.

Hux sat down on the sofa, datapad in hand, and began to forge the documentation he needed to begin Phase One of his plan.

\--

The afternoon spent in the aseptic solitude of his quarters had been long and tedious.   
For much of the day, Kylo was tormented by a strange mixture of boredom and agitation that did not leave him even when, with an exasperated sigh, he had pushed all the furniture towards the wall and sat cross-legged on the carpet, breathing deeply with his eyes closed in an attempt to put the relaxation techniques he had been taught as soon as he began to show a temper that was a little too impetuous for the tastes of his masters into practice.    
If a ten-year-old boy with a short temper and a disturbing inclination towards physical violence was a problem, a ten-year-old boy with a short temper, a disturbing inclination towards physical violence,  _ and _ the ability to control the invisible forces that govern the universe was a veritable time bomb, a cataclysm just waiting to happen.    
Just when he thought he was on the verge of reaching a state of pleasant serenity, a duty droid had seen fit to knock on his door to ask him if he ever needed anything and if he had found the room to his liking.

He then decided to take a shower, possibly long and hot. Had Hux been there with him, he knew the Colonel would not have spared him his childish jokes about his supposed dislike of soap and water, to which Kylo would have replied with an equally cutting comment about how unseemly it was for a military leader of his caliber to indulge in such comforts when his soldiers were forced to wait hours in line for a cold shower. The truth was that, after having washed away the cold sweat meeting Snoke had left on his skin, and, together with it, the tiredness of the previous days, he almost felt like he was reborn. Perhaps, in the future, he should have been more forgiving of the Colonel's passion for certain amenities. Perhaps.

As he dressed, he glanced towards the datapad that had been provided to him along with the accommodation, No blinking light to signal the arrival of a new message. If years - or even months ago - someone had told him that one day he would be looking forward to a text from Hux, he would not have believed it.    
In no time at all, he found himself pacing up and down the room, his still damp hair falling over his forehead, muttering to himself. If the Colonel thought he was the only one capable of devising a plan to defeat the Emperor, Kylo would have shown him how wrong he was. The humiliation of not being able to defend himself from Palpatine's attack the previous day, if not with a desperate suicidal act, still burned, too painful to ignore. He had to prove he could do better. Whichever direction they chose to move, he wasn't going to back down this time around.

\--

2100 came and went, without any sign from Ren. Hux had used the extra time to forge a couple of signatures - after having passed information to the Resistance for months, the threat of being court-martialed for having forged public deeds was no longer credible - and had forwarded a shore leave request to the human resources office.

Ten days was a more than reasonable request, especially in light of the thirty-six he'd accumulated over the past three years. He would spend the first three days on Zeltros, enjoying the local hospitality and the renowned pheromones produced by the indigenous population (an indulgence Hux hadn't allowed himself for too long - certainly before Starkiller Base was completed). He would then spend the remaining seven, relaxed and with his endorphin levels finally stabilized, devising a strategy for the upcoming months.

It was a flawless program. He only needed to communicate it to Ren in such a way as to avoid an inappropriate outburst.

Hux had been so engrossed in his plan that he didn't notice, until 2115, that he had completely forgotten to send Ren a confirmation message.

_ This is not like me _ , he muttered to himself, feeling the blood drain from his fingertips. Probably the last few weeks had been harder on him than he liked to admit. Maybe he would spend five days on Zeltros, and not just three.

And now he was forced to do one of the things he liked the least - something he would only do to save himself from certain death, probably, and only if he had no other way out: apologize.

[2115] Col. Armitage Hux: "Lord Ren, with this message I intend to renew my previous informal invitation, at the same time offering you my heartfelt apologies for the unprofessional timing. Sincerely, Colonel Armitage Hux, Resurgent-class Star Destroyer Finalizer, First Order. Glory to the Supreme Leader!”

\--

Kylo was already wondering if he shouldn't just show up anyway, even without a formal invitation. Hux would have no right to complain, as he himself had been insisting that they meet that very evening; when the familiar  _ ding!  _ coming from his datapad caught his attention.   
To say that the content of Hux's message was hilarious as well as unusual would have been an understatement. Kylo was used to the annoying degree of formality that the Colonel insisted on using aboard his ship, but after both of them nearly died ... No, after both of them  _ died and returned to life _ in circumstances where their relationship could no longer be considered exclusively professional, he had hoped that, at least in private, he would have tried to act like a normal person.    
Apparently, his hopes had been misplaced. As if that wasn't enough, the signature was the icing on the cake.  _ Glory to the Supreme Leader? _ Was he worried that Snoke was using his powers to keep tabs on all the ship's datapads, hoping to steal information about a possible mutiny? Not that it was impossible, but certainly highly unlikely. He didn't even bother to answer, opting to put his boots on instead, and retrieve the helmet that, alas, he couldn't afford to leave behind in case he happened to run into some nosy stormtrooper on the way to the Colonel's quarters.    
The short journey was covered without accidents or unpleasant encounters of any kind. Within a few minutes, Kylo found himself face to face with Hux, who rushed to open the door after hearing him arrive.

"Rough day?", he asked, with a faint note of irony in his voice. Since the day they had met for the first time, Hux had never lost sight of his own responsibilities, not even the most insignificant ones. Maybe the Colonel had been right when he had insinuated that that absurd situation was playing tricks on his mind, and his psyche was really starting to feel the deleterious effects of that continuous rewinding of the timeline.

Kylo couldn't tell if he found such a possibility amusing or disturbing - on the one hand, it showed that, despite his best efforts to make the opposite seem true, Hux was a human being exactly like the rest of the people who lived and worked on all First Order ships; on the other hand, a Hux deprived of his usual rationality could mean new emotional outbursts like the one of the previous day and, with an enemy able to read the feelings of others, it was the kind of thing that could have easily put them both in danger.    
He didn't wait for Hux to offer him a seat, but he directly took place on the sofa, not before taking off his helmet and placing it casually on the first piece of furniture available, making Hux's nose wrinkle comically.

"What gave it away?" Hux asked, sitting down at his desk and leaning his back against his sober office chair.

In response, Kylo just offered him a shrug. It was clear that whatever were the thoughts that had tormented him throughout the day, they were so worrying that they even made him forget the appointment they had scheduled just a few hours earlier.

"Unfortunately, I don't have good news", Hux continued, in fact, with a funereal expression. "I was contacted by the finance department  _ and  _ the human resources department, separately. Apparently, the number of days of license that I have not yet redeemed exceeds the maximum limit set by the regulations. I was kindly advised to consume at least a dozen of them within the next four weeks." He sighed, with the air of a man condemned to the gallows. "The alternative would be to receive a visit from a medidroid, and undergo a thorough examination of my psychophysical condition. Apparently, according to the human resources manager, it is not healthy to work continuously for two years in a row." He raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if to say  _ can you imagine that _ ?

It took Kylo a few moments to figure out exactly what the Colonel wanted to tell him, since he had carefully delivered the news with the likely intent of averting an aggressive reaction on his part.

"Let me get this straight," he said, his brows frowning in an expression halfway between perplexed and indignant. “Are you thinking of going on shore leave?  _ Now _ ? Not even twenty-four hours ago we have been killed by Palpatine, and now you decide it's time to go on vacation? Tell me you're kidding."

The severe that the Colonel shot him only confirmed his assumption: Hux was really losing his mind.

"I'm not going on  _ vacation _ , Ren," Hux replied, shaking his head. "I am forced, by circumstances beyond my control, to take a few days off. I’m obviously not doing it for my personal pleasure. Do you really want me to undergo a psychiatric evaluation? After the year you put me through, not counting my subsequent four deaths?"

He took a cigarra from an elegant silver case that he kept in one of the desk drawers, and he lit it. He extended the case in Ren's direction, just in case.    
Kylo shook his head. He was still trying to process what the Colonel had just communicated to him and find something, anything that made any sense.

“I will work on our projects remotely, of course”, Hux went on. “Provided that, for that time, we will have something in our hands that can be called a project. I doubt it, since I'm leaving in three days." He inhaled elegantly, then slowly exhaled the smoke from his slightly parted lips. “Anyway, ten days away from Snoke can only do me some good. Maybe, without the constant fear that he may hear my thoughts, I will be able to discover something interesting about our present condition. "

"I just don't see how spending time away from the Finalizer can be somehow enlightening," Kylo replied, making sure to let all his skepticism shine through. If not even he had been able to fully understand the mechanics of the sadistic game in which they had been unwittingly involved, he found it rather unrealistic that Hux would succeed, moreover while already busy enjoying his beautiful vacation who knows how many parsecs away from their primary goal. “But I understand that you have no way to refuse. Fantastic."

The more he thought about it, the more that forced leave began to sound like an excuse to leave him alone with Palpatine. He watched Hux blow smoke out of his mouth through his parted lips, unable to stop himself from wrinkling his nose when the acrid smell reached his nostrils. How Hux could enjoy that disgusting pastime was beyond his understanding.   
On the other hand, it was also true that he was very unfamiliar with the organizational system of the First Order. As a disciple of the Supre me Leader, he represented an exception to the protocols, thus he had always been exempt from most of the duties of the rest of the soldiers.    
It wasn't  _ technically  _ hard for him to believe that an apparently infallible war machine like that of the First Order had imposed a set of rules aimed at safeguarding the psychophysical health of his men - or at least those at the top of the military hierarchy. The fact that they had gone six years back in time also meant that Hux was no longer in a position to question the orders of his superiors. Still, he couldn’t exactly say he liked the timing.

"I guess you've already thought about how to take advantage of the few days we have left before you have to pack your bags, am I wrong?"

\--

Hux certainly did not expect Ren to appreciate the fine mechanics of a well-oiled bureaucratic apparatus, but the annoyance he was showing at the ten-day leave - which he insisted on calling a  _ vacation  _ \- was frankly insulting. It didn't matter that Hux  _ actually  _ intended to take advantage of his absence from the Finalizer by indulging in the foulest and most lascivious pleasures that could come to his mind: the mere fact that Ren was convinced that Hux had little desire to get down to business was simply  _ offensive _ .

"Unfortunately no, there is no way to refuse," he replied seraphic, putting out his cigarra in a silver ashtray as elegant as the tabac case he had used a little earlier. "But the good news is that I will be exempted from having to take more days off for at least another year. Getting back to more pressing matters", he continued, leaning against the back of the leather chair, "I obviously thought about how to take advantage of my current situation. I guess you've heard of the Sith archives, so I won't bore you for long."

He stretched out his legs under the desk, pleased with himself. That of the Sith archives had been a real stroke of genius.

Hux regarded the Sith as religious fanatics, and he never hid his dislike of everything that directly involved them. He had long been convinced that they were nothing more than embarrassing relics of a bygone era, sunk into the abyss of Time together with Palpatine and the whole Empire. It was not difficult to imagine, therefore, the disgust he felt upon receiving the news of the Emperor’s failure to depart from the plane of existence and of the creation of the Final Order fleet.

Despite his lack of sympathy for anything involving the Sith, the Jedi, and other assorted warlocks, Hux possessed an excellent memory. He had never forgotten certain phrases he had heard as a child from Enric Pryde and from his own father, conversations involving archives that supposedly held all Sith knowledge, and which appeared to have been consulted by Palpatine himself and shown to his disciple Darth Maul many years before.

“In case you are wondering if I intend to leave for Ticova in three days, know that I have not yet completely lost my mind. I'm not in the position to be able to escape unscathed from the confines of the Galaxy and coming back for lunch", he crossed his arms over his chest. "But I can work on it."

Of course not, he would never work on it. However, Hux hoped for two things: the first was that Ren would appreciate his show of initiative and stop asking him questions. The second was that Ren decided not to wait for him and left for Ticova on his own.

\--

Kylo had to admit, he was pleasantly surprised that Hux was aware of the existence of something like the ancient Sith archives, and that he was even evaluating their potential usefulness when, until a few cycles before, he had judged anything that had to do with the Force as a bizarre idea and certainly unworthy of his consideration. If his understanding of the universe was  _ really _ changing, leading him to accept truths that in the past he had considered absurd, Kylo could only be grateful for it. To tell the truth, he had never thought it possible that someone like Hux could even change, rigid and immovable in his beliefs as he was and always had been. From that point of view, he could consider himself moderately surprised.

"No, maybe not you, but I...", he left the sentence trailing off, as he often did when he was suddenly distracted by a multitude of conflicting thoughts. Without even realizing it, he had straightened up against the back of the sofa, assuming a tense position that contrasted with the relaxed position of the Colonel in his comfortable office chair. He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice.

The idea of accessing knowledge far beyond his imagination was tempting, if not almost irresistible. Maybe that was what he had missed when he first faced Palpatine. Perhaps, somewhere in the bowels of the archive, was hidden the secret of his unnatural survival, the way to counter his seemingly limitless power, the secret to wipe him and all his work from the face of the Galaxy. He wasn't foolish enough to think it would be an easy feat - just the journey to Ticova would take a long time, time Palpatine could use to probe his intentions and hit him even before he got his hands on what he was looking for.   
  
He looked up at Hux, who was still watching him with undisguised smugness from behind his desk. He seemed proud of his own brilliant idea. His every cell emanated self-satisfaction. He still didn't like the fact that he had to risk his life while Hux enjoyed his quiet leave on who knows what tropical planet, and he probably never would have liked it, but the alternative made the idea of taking on all the work quite bearable. 

"If we both leave in three days, you on shore leave and me looking for the archives under some pretext, we could optimize the time," he conceded. "But no one guarantees us that Palpatine won't catch up with our plans. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that he's already considered the possibility that someone wants to use the secrets of the Sith against him. On the other hand, as far as I know, he was the last to access them."

\--

He could almost see Ren's brain cell and a half (two and a half, to be generous) whirling in the pneumatic vacuum of his brain, trying to quickly process the new information that Hux had just given him.

The Colonel did not have to wait long. A known expression appeared almost immediately on Ren's face - a strange mixture of hesitation and solemnity, as if Ren was the only special being in the whole Galaxy, and every minutia and every trifle that he occasionally happened to know must necessarily mean something extraordinary.

It had been all too easy, Hux told himself, to arouse interest in that simple mind prey to its own superstition. He would have no problem dispelling the last doubts.

"What you say is true", he conceded, compelling himself to appear more concerned than he really felt. "However, if there is one thing that Palpatine lacks and that we possess in abundance, it is time. Even if we fail, we will still have the opportunity to retrace our steps and take a new path. In the meantime”, he added,“I can assure you that you will not be alone. If, as I seemed to understand, you also believe that the path of Sith knowledge is the correct one, in the meantime I could recover the necessary equipment for a possible expedition to Malachor."

If mentioning Ticova hadn't definitively won Ren's trust, Hux was pretty sure that hinting at Malachor in the same casual tone with which he would speak of a negligible power outage in the ship's 6-D sector would.

Hux mentally thanked the hours spent in the Arkanis Academy library in an attempt to hide from his father, and the inexhaustible thirst for knowledge that had led him to bury his (then) tiny and freckled nose into a pair of old history books. He was convinced, of course, that the tales of infinite sources of Sith power and multidimensional portals were nothing more than pleasant nonsense. But Ren? They had never really discussed it, but Hux knew, with the same certainty with which he knew that in three days he would leave without regrets for Zeltros, that Ren had built his whole life around this kind of nonsense. And it was finally time to exploit this umpteenth weakness of his.

\--

It was clear that he had underestimated Hux's preparation in what concerned the ancient history of the Jedi and Sith orders. Escaping one’s death by being catapulted into a frighteningly faithful replica of one's past life would have shaken anyone, but if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Kylo would have been willing to bet any of the few material possessions he owned that, even faced with the irrefutable proof of the existence of the Force, Hux would have been skeptical - like trying to scratch the surface of a diamond with a blunt knife. But there he was, not only suggesting they rely on the knowledge of the ancient Sith to defeat their common enemy, but volunteering to help him in his search for something that, as far as old Hux knew, didn’t even exist.

The inner voice of common sense that whispered to him to proceed with caution in the face of such a change, was drowned by that of impatience, which shouted at him to act, act before Palpatine could discover their plots and make his own move. And if he still hadn't been convinced of the Colonel's sincerity, would it have been enough to consider the total lack of nervousness in the air around him, replaced by something very similar to...tranquility? Complacency? It was absurd to even think about it, but Hux seemed to be entirely confident that his plan would go to fruition.

"I'll be honest," he said, as if in his entire life he had ever been able to come up with a convincing lie or to conceal his emotions. “I'm not dying to go on a suicide mission, or to proceed by trial and error until we discover Palpatine's weak spot. But if you really can't escape your duties, our options are limited to say the least. If we could get the secrets that the Sith have tried to keep hidden for centuries, with all the power that comes with them, we might be able to beat him at his own game." There was a pause, in which Kylo allowed himself a few moments to analyze Hux's expression. He was struck by how comfortable the Colonel seemed as he unconsciously tapped the fingers of his right hand on his knee. "It might work," he finally conceded.

And it was about as close to a 'thank you for the tip' Kylo could go without compromising his pride, admitting aloud that Hux's proposal was a good, indeed, an excellent idea. So good that he would have liked to be the one to conceive it first.

\--

Hux almost thought he could already feel it on the tip of his tongue, the taste of daiquiri mixed with the vaguely bitter taste of the spices, accompanied by the smell of saltiness coming from the immaculate beach, a scent that near the dozens of bars that dotted the coastline mixed with the strong scent of cologne and yet another odor, perceptible only to those whose senses were turned on by benzodiazepines - a smell that in any other situation would have made him wrinkle his nose in disgust, but which on certain occasions (grace of a well-balanced use of stimulants and forced abstinence) became the most attractive in the entire Galaxy: testosterone and desire in equal parts, ready to be sold to the highest bidder for the price of a cocktail, or even less. Oh, may Ren go beyond the confines of the known Universe in the vain search for the magic formula to defeat Palpatine once and for all! Hux would certainly have had better things to do.

The drumming of Ren's fingers betrayed his impatience, unconsciously inviting Hux not to waste precious time.

“It might work,” he nodded, gently biting his lower lip in a hint of a smile. "And if he doesn't, at least we will have tried."

He stood up and stretched elegantly, letting Ren know that it was time for him to go to bed.

"Tomorrow, at the end of the  _ Beta _ shift, I will be engaged with Phasma. The next evening, however, I will gladly be at your disposal to draw up a more concrete action plan "- lies, of course: he would have granted himself a regenerating mask and would have packed his bags, but this Ren should never have known. He started towards the exit, beckoning Ren to follow him.

"In the meantime, I am pleased to renew my surprise at the fruits that this unexpected alliance seems to be starting to bear." His green eyes sought the dark, impossibly, eternally large ones of Ren, in an attempt to read inside them a note of suspicion and apprehension, which Hux tried in advance to dispel with one of his rare smiles. "I feel oddly confident tonight."

"Unexpected, yes, I don't think there is a better way to define it," Ren replied, as he let Hux lead him to the door. “But it looks like we're finally on the right track. At least I hope so. And I also hope that your trust is not misplaced." He cracked a smile, before quickly putting his mask on.    
  
_ A bashfulness that could have been oddly charming, coming from any other man. _

Hux activated the opening mechanism. He leaned against the doorframe, taking in the other man’s large silhouette, and waited for him to cross the threshold. 

He lowered his voice into a whisper, his eyes wandering from Ren’s mask to the unlit corridor behind him.

"Goodnight, Ren."

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggering contents: manipulative behavior, mention of aphrodisiacs/drugs intake, smoking.


End file.
